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TWO HARD CASES 



SKETCHES FROM A PHYSICIAN'S PORTFOLIO 



y^ BY 

W. W. GODDING, M. D. 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 





(( JUL ^QioG^ 

BOSTON 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 

(Cfee CtiViergiDc ^res^, CamliriDGC 

1882 






Copyright, 1882, 
Br W. W. GODDING. 

All rights reserved. 



TJie Riverside Press, Cambridge • 
Stereotyped and Printed by II. O. Ilougliton & Co. 



/^-.l9i4Q 



PREFACE. 



Psychological problems are not considered 
popular reading, and a treatise on mental disorders 
is hardly to be recommended as a knapsack com- 
panion for the mountain and the sea-side ; but the 
curious questions that history has left unanswered 
are always fascinating to a certain class of minds, to 
none more so than to the idle dreamers who seek re- 
fuge from ennui at the summer resorts. Ah, " Pa- 
triae quis exul, se quoque fugit ? " We all know 
what Sir Thomas Browne says about the song the 
sirens sang ; and to the oft-repeated queries, Who 
wore the iron mask ? What and where was the 
lost Atlantis ? How many children had .John 
liogers ? is now added the later but hardly less 
l)uzzling one, Was Guiteau insane? 

I have decided to publish this little volume, not 
])ecause I think that there is any general demand 
for such a work, but for the reason that I observed. 



iv PREFACE. 

during the examination of the medical expert wit- 
nesses at the late trial, that one must be very far 
down in the scale not to have at least written a 
book, or have been elected an honorary member of 
some foreign society. Here at the Capitol, when 
a man misses his opportunity to speak, he is gen- 
erally granted leave to print, his auditors being 
only too thankful to have escaped the infliction by 
so harmless a concession. It is perhaps too soon, 
before the fate of the edition is determined, though 
probably safe enough, to congratulate the public on 
their escape in this instance. Those readers who 
habitually skip the Preface have thus far suffered 
no harm. W. W. G. 



TWO HAED CASES. 



C. R. W. 

A FRAGMENTARY MEMOIR. 

[Read before the New England Psychological Society, in 1877.] 

C. R. W , aged seventeen, a native of Lowell, 

Mass., and student at the High School in that place, 
was indicted in June, 1872, for an assault, with in- 
tent to kill, on the person of C. E. K , the 

weapon being a pistol. He was tried and acquitted 
on the ground of insanity, and sent to the Lunatic 
Hospital at Taunton, INIass. I have no minutes of 
the trial, nor was I present, though I have under- 
stood that it was shown that he had been one of the 
best scholars in the school, but had, during the year 
or two preceding the assault, become moody and 
reserved, neglecting his studies, and giving evidence 
of a weakened mind, the result, it was claimed, of 
secret vice. The immediate cause of the shootino; 
appeared to be jealousy. I here introduce part of 

a letter that I received from C. E. K , in May, 

1875, as it gives his statement of the case, and is 



6 TWO HARD CASES. 

the only direct testimony that has come into my 
hands. He says : " About four years ago the past 

winter, C. li. W attended the Lowell Higli 

School, and was in the same class with the young 
lady to whom I am now married. He seemed sad 
and quiet, and like one without any friends, but 
was an excellent scholar at school, and often asked 

IMiss for assistance, being in the same class, 

which she granted. lie wanted to call on her some 
evening and receive help in his Greek lessons, in 
which lie seemed very much interested. I was 
waiting upon her at the time, and she asked me 
if I had any objections. I told her I had not. 
He called several times, and seemed to take hold 
and study hard; but one night, on leaving the 
house, he shamefully insulted her, and from that 
time she had nothing more to say to him. He was 
often seen after that prowling around the house, 
and whenever we attended meeting or an entertain- 
ment of any kind together he was sure to be there, 
and to follow us home, but we never paid any at- 
tention to him whatever. Sunday evening, Feb- 

luary 28, 1872, Miss and I attended meeting 

at one of the churches here, and while there saw 

AV sitting in the gallery, but thought nothing 

of it. I went from church with my lady to her 

home, and, as I was leaving there, W sprung 

from behind a large board fence and lired two 



TWO HARD CASES. 7 

shots at me, both taking effect, and one of them I 
carry now. Before this occurrence he had several 
times stolen money from his sick father and run 
away from home, and the police hunted him up 
and returned him. His father died late in the sum- 
mer of 1871, and after that he did as he pleased. 
I have since learned that he always had a very 
ugly disposition, and that his parents had no control 
over him, but I know nothing of his life previous 
to this event except what I have heard. Every one 
here that was acquainted with his father says that 
he was an excellent man, and the}^ do not see what 
should make the boy so bad, except that his own 
mother, who died when he was quite small, had not 
a very pleasant disjjosition, and was hard to get 
along with at times." 

IMy acquaintance with the case dates from his 
commitment to the hosj^ital, July 29, 1872. Ex- 
cept a certain cat-like expression, his appearance 
was rather prepossessing ; his face was smooth as 
a boy's, his smile pleasant, his eye hazel and wholly 
impenetrable. It was one of the hardest eyes to 
read that I ever saw. To the last it was a riddle 
to me, — hence this memoir. 

Mere boy that he was, I decided to place him in 
a pleasant room and let him have his school-books 
about him ; the hope of his case was to gain his 
confidence and give him every chance for recovery. 



8 TWO HARD CASES. 

He seemed very grateful for the favor sliown him, 
gave no trouble, read and studied, went quietly to 
walk with his attendant ; then, later, went out with 
the other members of his ward with two attendants, 
dodged down a lane under their very eyes, and 
August 11, 1872, thirteen days after admission, 
that child-like young man had vanished. Parties 
were sent in search, the police of different places 
notified, w«,tch was kept in Lowell, but no trace dis- 
covered. Some weeks later I found that he had an 
uncle in Washington, D. C. Thinking he might 
have made his way there, the chief of police was 

notified, and with the best description of W 

that we could give, he had special search made for 
htm, but without result. Up to the time of his 
elopement he had manifested no insanity here, and 
the friends of young K were naturally indig- 
nant that W had, by the specious plea of in- 
sanity, so easily avoided the state prison and so 
soon escaped from all confinement whatever. 

The situation was an unpleasant one to me, and 
I was debating what further steps to take, when, 
on the 3d of October, 1872, I received from H. 

B. M , of Washington, D. C, the following 

letter : — 

Washington City, D. C, September 30, 1872. 

Sir, — Some three weeks ago C. R. W , a 

son of my half-brother, T. II. W (now de- 



TWO HARD CASES. 9 

ceased), of Lowell, Mass., arrived at mj office in 
this city, having escaped from your asylum, where 
he had been sent by the court, held at East Cam- 
bridge, after being acquitted by the jury of the 
charge against him, on the ground of insanity. I 
have deferred notifying you of his Avhereabouts, 
hoping that by the medical treatment already re- 
ceived while in your asylum he might have been 
sufficiently benefited so as to render his return un- 
necessary. But he has displayed since here the 
same characteristics and unusual tricks which he 
did before his attempt to take the life of young 

K . 

I have become impressed with the idea that it is 
my duty, and to his interest and to the interest of 
the community, to notify you that he is here, and 
that I will render any assistance within my power 
to have him returned. I knew nothing of his es- 
cape until he called upon me in my office in this 
city. He tells me that he walked from Taunton to 
Lowell, where he found friends, who gave him 
money to come out here witli. I believe that, if 
the boy could be kept under your treatment, he 
would be cured in a year or two ; but he will, in a 
very short time, go to ruin if permitted to run 
around as now. I do not know what steps it will 
be necessary for you to take to have him returned, 
but if you can procure a requisition for him and 



10 TWO HARD CASES. 

seud it to me, I will place it in the hands of the 
proper authorities here, and have him returned ; or 
I will assist you in any other manner that I can. 
Hoping to hear from you at your earliest conven- 
ience, I remain. 

Very respectfully, H. B. M . 

Here was the best evidence of his insanity that 
I had yet received ; a man who had evidently in- 
tended to conceal him, — and whose office, where 

W had worked all the time, was actually the 

next door to that of the chief of police, who had 
been making search, — he was his uncle, and he 
would naturally try to screen him, had worked for 
him at the time of the trial, and yet, at the end of 
three weeks, his actions had caused apprehension 
of violence, and brought the uncle to a late sense of 
his " duty " in the matter. 

I sent a telegram at once to notify Major Rich- 
ards, the chief of police, and have W arrested. 

In a day or two I received this letter : — 

Washington, D. C, October 3, 1872. 
Sir, — I have just received your telegram, and 
have complied with your request so far as seeing 

Major Richards is concerned, and W will be 

returned as soon as your requisition is received. 
My object in writing now is to let you know the 



T]VO HARD CASES. 11 

reasons why I wrote to you as T did : first, it was 
my duty ; aud, secondly, I had discovered that lie 
relieved nature upon the floor of his room, and then 
threw it out of the window, and many other things 
unnecessary to mention, and immediately upon dis- 
covering these things I talked with him in regard 
to his conduct. He did not appear to appreciate 
the fact of having done anything wrong, but he ab- 
sented himself from the table, and commenced 
sneaking around the house and appearing morose 
and surly, which acts alarmed the members of my 
family, and I felt that he must most certainly be 
either insane, or terribly de[)raved morally, either 
of which being true he certainly needed treatment. 
I would greatlv inefer that he should not know 
that his return was brought about by my eflbrts. 
I hope to hear from you after his return. I am 
anxious to do all I can for him, but really I desire 
that he should leave Taunton in some way or man- 
ner other than by running away. I remain. 

Very respectfully, II. li. M . 

The attorney general having given an opinion 
adverse to the issue of a requisition, I sent a special 
officer, who returned W to the hospital Octo- 
ber 19, 1872, to all appearance the same quiet, 
incomprehensible young man who had left us two 
Uionths before. He was placed in a screened 



12 TWO HARD CASES. 

room and kept secluded for a time, being, how- 
ever, allowed his school-books, of which he had 
quite a library. 

I had no idea that seclusion would do him any- 
good, but it was a necessity of the case. He was 
usually quiet and pleasant, but at times moody and 
despondent. Seeing that he was growing worse 
in solitude, after a month or two I allowed him 
the liberty of the ward, having him sleep in the 
screened room at night. We found that he prac- 
ticed self-abuse, and on one occasion, after being 
very moody and silent, he became violently excited, 
so as to require the restraint of a camisole, and 
finally confinement to a bed. 

I watched him narrowly, and made up my mind 
that it was an outburst of maniacal excitement, and 
not a manufactured article. He, himself, attrib- 
uted this to self-abuse, and afterwards, on more 
than one occasion, he begged to have the camisole 
put on, and even to be confined to the bed. The 
young man was deep, but he did not make all this. 
1 fii;d by reference to the minutes of the case, 
" Jan'y 2, 1873, was coaxed by two other men who 
broke out to escape, but did not consent to go." 
" Feb'y 22, concealed a knife from the table, and 
cut the window casing so that he could open his 
blind." " For this he was secluded ; he then de- 
stroyed all his school-books in one night." This. 



TWO HARD CASES. 13 

I think, he afterwards felt very badly about, as 
they had been his companions for years. " March 

3, quiet ; on the ward wearing a camisole." " March 

4, fastened himself in his room." " March 20, very 
comfortable ; now on the ward without restraint." 
" April 0, still comfortable ; has now been on the 
upper ward nearly a week." " May 1, nneasy ; 
wants to go to the centre ward " (this is a small 
ward for convalescent patients), " or else to be re- 
moved to the lower hall," — a ward for noisy de- 
ments. "May 19, with another inmate took out 
a window and loosened the iron sash, with a view 
to escaping, but was discovered." Was kept se- 
cluded for a time, but, finding no progress towards 
a cure in this way, I decided to try him out on the 
upper ward again. The record runs along, " Quiet 
and comfortable," until August 21, when, in com- 
pany with a convict, he eloped at night from the 
third-story window. In the morning there was the 
usual telegraphing to Lowell and other cities, scouts 
sent out, and the full anticipation of another un- 
comfortable time with the Lowell people, when, at 
nine o'clock in the evening, that mild young man 
walked quietly into the general office, and seated 
himself to await my coming. The explanation that 
he gave of the matter was that the first he knew 
he found himself, towards evening, sitting under a 
tree, at a long distance from the hospital, to which 



14 TWO HARD CASES. 

he returned as rapidly as possible. As the man 
who escaped with him had do such call back to 
the hospital, I was never able to get any collateral 
testimony regarding his a23pearance during the day 
he was out. 

As the question of larvated epilepsy will suggest 
itself to the medical reader, I should say that no 
trace of an epileptic attack, other than such parox- 
3'sms as have already been given, w^ere ever ob- 
served. His explanation may seem unsatisfactory, 
but why appear happy to get back, and, having 
got fairly away, why did he come back at all ? It 
w^as evident that that self-possessed young man 
was either deeper or crazier than we had hitherto 
known. He was returned to the upper ward, but 
detained in his room, a screened one. He made 
no objection to this, but ten days later (Septem- 
ber 2) he was depressed, and a few days after this 
a paroxysm of excitement came on, in which he 
tore all his clothing to shreds. "Was placed in a 
camisole, confined to the bed, and a few hours later 
he was very calm and sorry for what had occurred. 

For two months following this he seemed quite 
comfortable ; amused himself with copying off 
verses in a book, which he did very neatly, or- 
namenting the borders with little sprigs and flow- 
ers in pen-drawing. He was certainly doing bet- 
ter, when, December 22, he assisted Mears, a late 



TWO HARD CASES. 15 

arrival, who was uneasy at his detention, in remov- 
ing an iron sash in the third story, and then let him 
down into an airing court. The high fence of the 
latter j)roving an insurmountable obstacle to the 

eloper, AY kindly went down the roj^e, helped 

the man over the fence, followed him out in the 
same way, and then reported himself to the gen- 
eral office. There was no claim of unconsciousness 
this time, but all was done in the spirit of the gol- 
den rule, to do to his neighbor as he would be 
done by. It resulted in his being shut up by way 
of example, although he appeared to have made 
up his mind never to run away again. 

January, 1874, found him in his room, reading 
and writing. At times there would be slight de- 
pression, but the boy was doing better, had hopes 
of gaining my confidence and getting well. How 
far he succeeded in this is shown by the record of 
March 7, w^hen, during the night, he removed the 
sash from the w'indow of his room, in the third 
story, and vanished out of our sight, leaving this 
letter of regrets and apology : — 

Dr. W. W. Godding : 

Deal' Si?', — I have wished to stay here until I re- 
ceived an honorable discharge. And I have hoped 
that you would not allow "an outside pressure," as 
you term it, to cause you to treat me less kindly 



16 TWO HARD CASES. 

than you otherwise would, especially since you be- 
lieve in my innocence, and know such a feeling 
against me to be cruelly unjust. But having been 
disappointed, I feel driven to take the step I am 
about to. I have patiently borne calumny, wrong, 
and insult, conscious of my innocence from all 
crime and wrong, — believing that the God of 
truth would at last exonerate me from blame. 
And my good name has been vindicated before the 
law, even at the hands of strangers. I have j^a- 
tiently and uncomplainingly borne my confinement 
here, since I began to get well, being cheered by 
kind promises of my enjoying this spring the few 
privileges which others on the hall possess. 

But, having been informed that I may expect no 
immediate amelioration of my present strict con- 
finement, I feel a deep conviction that, in con- 
tinuing in my hopeless, disagreeable confinement 
merely and solely to gratify an unjust malignity, 
I am not doing justice to myself. If those who 
have acted as enemies to me express to you any 
fears at my being at liberty, I trust that, if only in 
justice to them, you will assure them how ground- 
less are their fears, and how far above anything 
so bad my character is. You know that for 

C. K I entertain feelings of the sincerest 

sorrow at the part I unconsciously had in the 
sad event by which v/e both were so unfortunately 



TWO HARD CASES. 17 

afflicted. I know that you will think this act is a 
mistake on my part ; but do not, 1 beg you, think 
I acted dishonorably, for I want to do what is right, 
and I have wished to stay and get discharged. 

I hate to leave in such a manner, but I feel a 
sense of duty prompting me to, for I cannot bear 
this dreary, hopeless confinement longer. Doctor, 
you have been very kind to me at times, and it 
is hard for me to cause you disappointment and 
trouble. Forgive me, for I am sincerely sorry to 
be compelled to act thus. It seemed hard that you 
should refuse to grant the promises which have 
so long helped me to bear m}^ confinement pa- 
tiently ; but I believe you have meant to do right 
by me, and I bear you no blame. I shall always 
remember you with gratitude for your past kind- 
ness. 

In very great tiaste, yours respectfully, 

C. R. W. 

TeleoTams to Lowell ao'ain, rewards offered in 
the papers, and detectives scouring the region, and 
my mind firmly made up that if I caught him again, 
he should spend his life in an iron-clad room, 
rather than that we should have all this worry and 
anxiety to go through every few weeks. 

The search proved fruitless, and I was debating 
a scheme of wider advertising, when, on the 18th of 
2 



18 TWO HARD CASES. 

March, I received the following letter, in the hand- 
writing with which I had grown familiar : — 

Stonington, Conn., March, 1874. 

Dr. W. TV. GoDDiNo : 

Dear Sir, — If you will send a person here Fri- 
day I will meet him at the depot and go back with 
him. It is inexpressibly humiliating and mortify- 
ing for me to write this, and nothing but an entire 
failure to obtain even the most menial employment 
would cause me to do it. It was at a sacrifice of 
much personal feeling, and very repugnant to my 
taste, for me to leave the hospital in the manner I 
did, but in doing it I still feel that I did my duty. 
For I felt, as any young man who has any am- 
bition whatever would feel, that, in continuing in 
worse than unprofitable confinement, as a state 
pauper, year after year, when 1 was able to work 
for myself, and when you yourself pronounced me 
well enough to be discharged, I would be doing 
neither what was right nor best. Yet you had 
been very kind to me, and indeed almost the only 
friend I had in the world, and it was painful for me 
to cause you disappointment and trouble. And so, 
for your sake more than my own, I resisted all 
temptation to go in August and December, and 
stayed, hoping that something might occur to en- 
able me to get an honorable discharge. And I 



TWO HARD CASES. 19 

talked with you long and often about the matter, 
but you said there was a strong outside feeling 
against my being discharged, and that without out- 
side assistance you could do but little. And per- 
ceiving that ray getting discharged would be an im- 
possibility for a long time to come, I felt impelled 
to do as I did. 

-Having obtained my liberty at such a cost of 
personal feeling and of trouble to others, I have 
struggled hard to keep it. Being utterly destitute 
of all means of support, and having no friend in the 
world to go to, I have been obliged to endure much 
privation and hardship. But I have searched con- 
stantly for a fortnight for employment, and have 
found that there are hundreds of others in the same 
condition, and that where there is any opportunity, 
experienced and known persons have the prefer- 
ence. And I have been told again and again that 
it is hopeless for me to get work. I have found 
kindness and sympathy wherever I have been, but 
I cannot brook the thought of living thus upon 
charity ; therefore I write you this. I have tried to 
act for the best, but my life seems cursed, and J 
am driven back to confinement worse than ever, 
and in which I can expect no sympathy or mercy, 
and only unrelenting severity. I have always been 
taught to believe that there is a Beins^ who does all 
things for the best, but when I think of mv sad 



20 TWO HARD CASES. 

life — how little pleasure I have known, and how 
much of sorrow — my mind is full of doubt. 

The past fortnight has shown me that without 
some friend's assistance I can do nothing in life, 
so I submit to my fate, and place myself at your 
mercy, regretting sincerely the useless trouble I 
have caused you. I will be at the depot Friday, 
when the afternoon train comes in. 

Respectfully, C. R. W. 

The messenger, arriving at Stonington Friday 
afternoon, found our young hero on the platform, 
awaiting his coming. 

Afterwards, in writing to the party with whom 
he had been stopping at Stonington, I found that 
it was not true that he could not get work, as the 
man had taken a deep interest in the poor boy, who 
appeared so well, but had no friends, and had se- 
cured hi*ti a good home with a farmer in the neigh- 
boihood, where he was to go the very day he disap- 
peared from Stonington, — another of the contra- 
dictions of a crazy life. The good man who had be- 
friended him, surprised at his absence, made some 
search in his chamber, and found pie-plates and egg- 
shells, which showed that the reserve that had led 

W to spend so much of his time by himself 

had not been wholly un[)roductive. In justice to 
the subject of this memoir, 1 should say that when 



T]VO HARD CASES. 21 

I spoke to him about this he disclaimed any knowl- 
edge of the matter, but thought tliese might be 
traces of the boy who had lived there during the 
winter. As I had lons^ ao;o ceased to regard 

AV 's stories as infallible, I did not pursue the 

matter further. 

On his arrival from Connecticut, I shut W up 

in a screened room, and considered what to do next. 
Our new building, wliere I flattered myself I should 
have better safeguards against elopement than the 
trifling hindrances that the old wards presented, was 
still some months from completion, and when done 
I was not over sanguine that it would keep him. 

It w^as idle to go on in the old way. Telegrams 
to Lowell had lost their novelty, and " him to safely 
keep " by the close method in my hands, at least, 
had proved a failure. 

Moreover, it was hardly the best curative treat- 
ment of the insane to shut up in a small screened 
room, for an indefinite term of years, a boy of 
eighteen, and especially did it seem to be hard for 
one who had voluntarily given himself up from 
elopement days after all trace of his whereabouts 
had been lost. 

I took a week for deliberation, and decided that 
the strongest grating I could place before him was 
a parole. Accordingly, on 4th of May, 1874, I 
placed him in the convalescent ward, where the 



22 TWO BARD CASES. 

doors are always open by clay, and, taking his word 
of honor not to leave the ground without permis- 
sion, I let him run. He was very happy in this, 
and so was I, being a believer in an innate man- 
hood and in the efficacy of paroles. 

He came and went with the same impenetrable 
eye, the same quiet demeanor, that had always char- 
acterized him. I felt that I was as far as ever 
from really knowing him. At times I allowed him 
to visit the public library, to go for berries, to 
row upon the river ; and one day I found him 
launching out in a dry-goods box, which he had 
caulked until he considered it seaworthy. Being a 
good swimmer, there was little fear of his drown- 
ing, but the affair was so peculiar that I called him 
to the shore and spoke with him. I found he was 
in the old moody, depressed mental condition. I 
advised him to stay in until he was better, and in 
a short time he seemed all right again. Early in 
July he had so far won over his attendant that he 

intrusted to W , when going to exchange his 

library book, a little money for lemons and sugar, 
and also trusted him to register a letter containing 
twenty dollars. He returned with a good supply 
of lemons and sugar, having used the money with 
which he was to res^ister the letter to swell the 
lemonade stock, mailing (?) the letter in the or- 
dinary way. It is needless to say that that lettei 



TWO HARD CASES. 23 

never reached its destination. I did not regret 
very much that the attendant had lost it, hoping he 
might thereby learn something, but I was sorry to 
feel that W had taken it. In a private conver- 
sation that I had with him on the subject, hoping to 
find where he had "hid it, he denied, positively, hav- 
ing taken it, felt humiliated that the- attendant, of 
wdiom he was so fond, should suspect him ; but he 
admitted that, being told to register the letter and 
not having done it, lie was responsible for the loss 
of the money. He should be glad to make up the 
loss if he had any means. I then told him that I 
would allow him to demonstrate the sincerity of 
his professions, give him a more extended parole, 
so that he might go for berries wherever they 
were thickest, and would pay him whatever price 
I was paying others, in order that he might make 
good the loss. It was a confidence that seemed 
at first to pierce the impenetrable moral mail that 
he wore, but he did not own to having taken the 
money. It was wonderful how that boy worked. 
He pretty much finished one suit of clothes in the 
pursuit, and earned about fifteen dollars, that he 
paid over to the attendant. He gathered, too, 
masses of wild flowers, which he arranged very 
prettily, and brought to my wife. He was so 
happy in it, seemed so much better, that I never 
took up the extended parole, though he was not 



24 TWO HARD CASES. 

wholly free from traces of the old depression at 
times. About this time the mayor and aldermen 
of Lowell visited the hospital to inspect their in- 
mates, and expressed their surprise and pleasure at 
the visible improvement in W , and at the ab- 
sence of reports, of late, of his elopement. 

Pie never bore crossing with anything like 
Christian resiofnation. On the 30th of Auijust a 
little picnic started out from the hospital, in which 
he had been very much interested, and for which he 
had made most of the arrangements. At the very 
last moment something was said or done tliat dis- 
pleased him, and he was moody and would not go ; 
but after dinner he went out, and did not return 
until late in the evening : where he went I never 
knew. During the autumn I found that he was 
habitually absenting himself from the chapel ser- 
vices on Sunday, and having spoken to him about 
the matter, he made little reply, but soon after left 
for me a characteristic note, which I here insert, 
as showiniT somethino' of the state of his mind from 
a religious stand-point : — 

Dr. W. W. Godding : 

Dear /S'/r, — I have been much perplexed by 
your wish that I should attend chapel on Sundays. 
I have never made a custom of doing so, and for 
a much greater reason than you have imagined. 



TWO HARD CASES. 25 

My mind lias always been slow to accept the relig- 
ion taught by Christ. I know of no better expres- 
sion of my views than that the tendency of my 
mind has always been toward the philosophy of 
John Stnart Mill. I of course have no prejudice 
against a religion that, above all others yet intro- 
duced, has satisfied the emotional nature of man. 
But to listen to its exposition is as tiresome as it 
would be for you to be obliged to listen to the 
mummeries of the Romish church. 

So irksome is it that I have hitherto chosen to 
be shut up in my room rather than attend. And 
if you will permit I will continue to refrain from 
attendino;. I dislike much to seem odd in beinor 
an exception to the rule of attending chapel, espe- 
cially as your wishes would have it otherwise. But 
I cannot help believing as I do. If, for any rea- 
son, you still think I had better attend, I will try 
to repress my aversion, and remain, 

Very respectfully, C. R. ^Y . 

Though I feared that this at best would prove 
but stonj^ ground for the sowing of our good chap- 
lains, I concluded that the philosophy of John 
Stuart Mill would hardly save him, at least that 
it should not save him from attending chapel, and I 
accordingly required him to be jDresent. 

The case went on with little change. During 



20 TWO HARD CASES. 

the winter he skated a good deal, being very fond 
of the sport, and on one occasion skated into the 
open river, but rescued himself. At another time 
he extended his parole as far as Fall River, on the 
ice, returning in season for supper. As the spring 

drew near, I think W seemed better than I 

had ever known him, though very anxious that I 
should move for his discharge. 

He had demonstrated his ability to refrain from 
running away, and the prospect seemed to brighten. 
To keep up his hopes I talked with him at some 
length in regard to the importance of being en- 
tirely well ; of the difficulty of getting the court 
to order the dischai'ge without there was abundant 
evidence of this ; of my own hope that the time 
was drawing near when we would feel safe about 
it ; that, indeed, I could promise that the coming 
summer should not go by, if he remained as well, 
without my taking steps to bring his case before the 
proper tribunal. 

This seemed to please him very much, yet when 
Jhe day of the centennial of the battle at Concord 

came W was missing at dinner-time. Was it 

possible his parole had been extended to take in 
that celebration ? lie knew belter ; had no busi- 
ness to do it. But, worse still, night came, with 
DO return. The parole, elastic, and stretching over 
nearly a year, was broken. Then came the old 



TWO HARD CASES. 27 

story of telegrams to Lowell and elsewhere, and 
the anxious searching for traces. The 20th and 
21st of April passed, with no tidings. It was clearly 
an elopenaent. 

On the evening of the 22d I received the follow- 
ing telea;ram : — 

ToROKTO, Oktahio, April 22, 1875. 

Please telegraph how I can return. C. R. W. 

Was it a ruse to obtain money ? "Was it another 
way of saying, How do you propose to get me out 
of the Queen's dominions ? Or was it the old con- 
trition that came in the reaction from excitement ? 
I was inclined to think the latter, but I answered, 
" Report yourself to the United States Consul." 
The next day came this telegram : " W is en- 
tirely destitute. What can you do ? " signed, United 
States Consul. I replied. Send him with an offi- 
cer, at our expense, — at the same time writing 
the consul at length by mail. Awaiting response, 
the mail brought me this letter in pencil: — 

Kingston, C. W., Aju-il'i'i, 1875. 
Wednesday evening. [He had originally written 
Toronto and erased it ; and morning, also erased.] 
It is nine o'clock as I sit down in the depot to write 
you these lines. I am waiting for the next train to 
Toronto, Can. [He had written Niagara, N. Y., in- 



28 TWO HARD CASES. 

stead of Toronto, Can., and erased it], which leaves 
here at eleven. I will set there in the morninsf. 
and will immediately telegraph to you. 

I find myself here with barely enough money to 
last me a day or two, when I shall have reached 
Toronto [:igain Toronto is written over Niagara, 
erased], at the end of which time I hope some one 
will arrive from Taunton. Where this money came 
from, how 1 came here, I know not. The thought 

rushes through my mind that it is the money B ■ 

lost last July. Yet I cannot believe that, for I re- 
member carrying his money to the office as distinctly 
as anything in my life. I make all haste to relieve 
you from the anxious suspense my absence must 
have caused you. You must have thought that I 
had broke my promise to you. This would be 
painful enough to me, but I almost lose sight of it 
in the anguish of an infinitely more terrible grief. 
Scarcely more than a week ago we were speaking 
of my going home, and everytliing looked so bright 
and hopeful. To-day I begin my journey to tlie 
hospital, which I know must be as a living tomb to 
me, — from which I never can and never ought to 
go forth, bearing such a curse as I do ; and with 
the bitterest realization that even that which makes 
the darkest life brighter, hope, has passed from mine 
forever. 

Oh, you have known in part what a great ambi- 



TWO HARD CASES. 29 

tion has been mine, and how passionately I have 
clung to the hope that, after all I had suffered, 
there was yet happiness before me ; and oh, you 
can conceive, better than any words of mine can ex- 
press, what a flood of terror and woe fills my hearr, 
till, cold and faint, it cries out for its only refuge, 
death ! Oh, I can't think why my life should be so 
cursed ! 

You have been kind and good to me, and have 
pitied me. God thank you for it, for I shall never 
be able to show my gratitude. The remainder of 
my life is at your disposal. If there should be 
times when I shall appear well, do not trust me, for 
I cannot trust myself. This may seem superfluous. 
But I may some time seem plausible, as I have for 
a year past, but let not any entreaties of mine move 
you. 1 speak this not merely for your sake, but for 
my own sake, for I never want to know again so 
bitter an hour as now. 

I have no heart to write farther, and the train is 
at hand. Yours, etc., C. R. W . 

The morning of the 24th I received this tele- 
gram : — 

Toronto, Ontaiuo, April 24:. 

W is perfectly right. Now would it not be 

safe to purchase ticket and send him on Monday ? 
He is anxious to go. 

(Signed) Col. Shaw, U. S. Consul. 



30 TWO HARD CASES. 

In the light of the letter just read and my past 
experience, I answered, " Yes." April 26th, I re- 
ceived a telegram from the consul that " W 

left on three fifteen train this P. m." I may men- 
tion here, as it goes to show the duplex character 

of W 's mind, not to say duplicity, that a month 

or two later we learned from Mr. Peter C. Jones, 

of Boston, that he met young W in Toronto at 

this time, who told him who he was : that he had 
lately been discharged from the hospital at Taun- 
ton ; that he had come away up there, and was out 
of means. He was impressed with his appearance 
as a very gentlemanly little fellow, sympathized 
with him, and gave him some money. 

The evening of the 27th of April, having driven 
into town for the mail, as I drew up at the post- 
office, the hospital supervisor, who, with an attend- 
ant, had taken some discharged patients to the rail- 
way station, drove up to me, and said, " We have got 

W ." It seems that they, not knowing that I 

was expecting his arrival, had pounced upon him, 
getting out of the train. The poor fellow, evidently- 
felt that he had fallen into the hands of the Phil" 
istines, his countenance brightening when he saw 
me, and begged to be allowed to walk u[) to the 
hospital. I never saw so much gratitude in his 
face as when I told the supervisor to let him get 
out; T would be responsible for him. He had 



TWO HARD CASES. 31 

come voluntarily too far to need to dog his last 
footsteps. 

Driving in, I passed him within half a mile of 
the hospital door, and invited him to ride with me, 
an invitation which he declined with a smile. A 
few minutes later, as I sat in the office, he walked 
in, as I had more than once seen him do before, with 
the same quiet self-possession, the same impenetra- 
ble hazel eye, that even then was looking beyond 
my horizon. I chatted with him a few moments, 
inquiring of his journey, and expressing my grati- 
fication at his voluntary return. He told me that, 
when he came to himself, he found he was riding in 
the cars, and on inquiring was told he was in Can- 
ada. I had outlined in my mind a little plan to 
beguile the coming time with drawing books and 
material, and the suggestion that out of his confine- 
ment he might fit himself for an artist life. But I 
did not broach it then, simply saying that what I 
had planned for him now we would talk over to- 
morrow. I assigned him a room in a pleasant ward 
of the new building, at which I thought I perceived 
the least dropping of his countenance, and took his 
hand, bidding him " good-evening." 

To-morrow never came to him. Early the next 
morning I was called to see him suspended by a 
leathern thonor from the wire transom over his 
door. It was a skate strap, that he had concealed 



32 TWO HARD CASES. 

when his clothins: was removed. He had been 
dead for hours. 

This little note, written in pencil and addressed 
to me, lay on the bureau, where he had placed 
it just prior to making a " leap in the dark" : "As 
I have fulfilled my duty to you, I take the step I 
intended at the first of my journey. I think even 
you will appreciate the motive that prompts me. 
I wish my remains to lie with those of my par- 
ents. Nihil extenuate, nil scribe quidquam en 
male." (Make , no apology, nor write anything 
in malice.) 

Thus in night and darkness that life had gone 
out utterly. If I held him responsible, I confess I 
have not in my heart to blame him, for what was 
there left to live for ? I have endeavored, in sub- 
mitting this memoir as a commentary on paroles, 
*' to extenuate nothing, nor set down aught in mal- 
ice." Looking back through a record of frequent 
trials, and a constant anxiety that worried and aged 
me more than any other case in my experience, the 
one briglit spot in all that record is the long soli- 
tary journey from Toronto; — coming back five 
hundred miles to die, not forgetting his promise to 
me. Our hero, from any stand-point, was full of 
flaws. Was it disease? Name it moral insanity, 
say it was depravity, call it what you will, the pict- 
ure is all in shadow. He had no faith in Christ. 



TWO HARD CASES. 33 

I doubt if he looked for any existence beyond this 
sad one ; yet, materialist that he was, to a certain 
extent he believed in such an abstraction as man- 
hood. He held his plighted word more precious 
than life ; he had not survived his honor. 
3 



TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

OUTLINES FOR A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. 

The life and the character of Charles J. Guiteau, 
together with the desolating results of his crime, be- 
long to our age, and, dim-eyed in the shadow of a 
great sorrow, we are called upon to look for his 
motives, and to pass judgment on his act ; the calm 
discussion of the forces that impelled him in so 
strange a direction will come in after-time. To 
that inevitable review in the future it is our duty to 
contribute all the facts in our possession, together 
with our opinions, for what they are worth, to the 
end and in the hope that posterity, whether revers- 
ing or affirming our verdict, may be able to do what 
we have not, — to answer satisfactorily the ques- 
tion, Wliy did he kill President Garfield ? 

For intruding upon the public with these brief 
outlines for a study of this most remarkable case I 
have no apology to offer. The public is under no 
obligation to read them ; doing so, they have a right 
to ask what have been my oi)portunities for obser- 
vation. By the courtesy of the officers of the gov- 
ernment I was granted permission to visit Guiteau 



TWO HARD CASES. 35 

in the jail late in September, early in October, and 
again during the progress of the trial. As an ex- 
pert on insanity, I was detained in the court-room 
througli the greater part of the proceedings. I am 
also indebted to the kindness of Mr. John "W. 
Guiteau for the privilege of examining a number of 
letters written by the father of Guiteau and others, 
wath liberty to make use of the same, — letters 
which, though not introduced as evidence at the 
trial, throw some light upon the earlier portions of 
Guiteau's career. If I add to this that these eisfht 
weeks spent in court were the longest vacation 
from the daily cares of a hospital for the insane, if 
such they can be called, which I have enjoyed in a 
period of more than eighteen years, 1 have stated all 
that is essential of my qualifications for the work. 
1 have taken scenes from the court-room as the basis 
of this outline, because at the trial, very properly, 
as it seems to me, the relations and circumstances 
of his whole life were reviewed -, and by following 
the notes of this, while, like the old Greek tragedy, 
we preserve the unities of time and place, w^e may 
at the same moment brin^ into the field of vision 
whatever in the past or present may be found to 
have a bearing upon the question of the man and 
his crime. 

Two pistol shots fired in "Washington on the 
second day of July, 1881, startled the world. 



36 TWO HARD CASES. 

Their victim was the first citizen of tlie Repub- 
lic. Not quite four months had passed since he 
was welcomed to the presidential chair with the 
acclaim of a whole nation, the splendid pageant of 
his inauguration being without a parallel since the 
organization of the United States government. It 
was no mere party triumph ; the years of the elec- 
toral commission were ended. Here was a Presi- 
dent by the people and for the people ; a self-made 
man, cradled in their poverty, but standing in his 
manhood as the exponent of their power and their 
glory ; a man of brain. An earnest believer in the 
" eternally right," he had stepped beyond the rank 
of party to that of President. The North had 
elected, the South knew and trusted, him. The 
long-delayed era of good feeling came back ; it 
seemed as if the golden age of the Republic was 
beginning to dawn. It is true that on the glory 
of that dawning the clouds of a selfish political 
ambition were already darkening. It is not to be 
denied or overlooked that the " spoils system," old 
as Agamemnon, had created a serious discord in the 
dominant party ; that "■ the chiefs, having contended, 
stood aj)art." Upon the merits of the New York 
contest I do not now purpose to enter, but the fact 
remains, and that quarrel will go down in history 
as the exciting, though altogether insufficient, cause 
of the assassin's parricidal act. It was the quarrel 



TWO HARD CASES. 37 

of tlie barons with their king ; but the people, in an 
age when the third estate is omnipotent, were on 
the side of the king ; their faith and their allegiance 
went where it was due ; he was their President, and 
they never doubted him. A politicians' turmoil, 
— how like the veriest mist of the mornino' it all 
vanished in a moment when the overwhelminsf sor- 
row came ! Here was a man whose nature was con- 
ciliatory, — who made no personal enemies. Well 
might that aged mother ask, " How could any- 
body hurt my bo}^ ? " And when the news was 
flashed round the world, instinctively we said, " He 
must be insane." In open daylight, in a public 
railway station, and in the midst of a crowd of 
friends, who but an insane man could have done it ? 
And stern men sobbed out. As God lives, he shall 
not die ! We said, God is good ; he will live. And 
of all the millions of Christendom, only one man 
was found to say, He must die, for God wills it, — 
the man who afterwards said, when on his trial, 
" God and one man are a majority." 

Then came the long weeks of anxious waiting, 
of alternate hope and despair, a silent nation hold- 
ino- its breath to listen for the latest bulletin, — 
there is nothing like it in history. The pent-up 
feelino^s of the civilized world were stilled, waitini:^ 
for the event. I said then, If the President dies, no 
plea of insanity can save this man from the gallows ; 



38 TIVO UARD CASES. 

if the President lives, no commission of lunacy will 
fail to find liim insane, and he will end his days in 
an asylum, for the tidal wave of public opinion in 
this case will be irresistible. I have seen no rea- 
son to change that statement since. 

The arraignment of Guiteau w^as on the 14th of 
October, 1881. Great care was taken that it should 
not be generally known on what day this would oc- 
cur. It was by tlie merest chance that I was pres- 
ent. Ilavino- occasion to see the district attorney on 
business, I called at his office, and was told that he 
was engaged in the criminal court. Stepping into 
the court-room, I found it nearly filled with a 
crowd that was constantly increasing. There was 
a residue left behind from the audience of the Star 
lioute cases, which had just been called, the usual 
assemblage of colored and white court-room loun- 
gers, and a few women ; but the majority were per- 
sons who had come at a moment's warning, true 
minute-men, — boys off the street, persons who had 
stopped in, passing by, w^orkmen from the new 
court-building, in their aprons and overalls, — some 
on tiptoe, all straining their necks for a glimpse of 
a short, slight man, with cropped hair and head 
drooped to one side, who stood listening to the 
clerk of the court, as he read on for nearly half an 
hour the indictment of Charles J. Guiteau for the 



TWO HARD CASES. 39 

murder of James A. Garfield. This indictment 
was in such terse sentences as the followinof: 
" And that the said Charles J. Guiteau, a certain 
pistol, of the value of five dollars, then and there 
charged with gunpowder and one leaden bullet, 
which said pistol, by the said Charles J. Guiteau, 
in his right hand then and there had and held, then 
and there feloniously, willfully, and of his malice 
aforethought, did discharge and shoot off, to, against, 
and upon the said James A. Garfield," etc., — this 
through eleven repetitions. I have no doubt that, 
from the legal stand-point, it was a carefully drawn, 
satisfactorily worded, paper, a gem in its way, — 
though I question if any lawyer would have called 
it concise ; but, to my mind, untutored in mediaeval 
lore, it seemed the mere verbiasfe that learned io-no- 
ranee mistook for perspicuity in the dark ages, and 
has since endeavored to dignify and perpetuate un- 
der the name of legal form, out of place in the nine- 
teenth century, here in America, where the judge 
has laid aside his ermine and his wio^. The loner 
reading ended with the question, " What say you to 
this indictment, — gnilty or not guil'ty ? " There 
was delay in the answer, an attempt by the prisoner 
to read from a paper something he had prepared 
beforehand, which was objected to, and a plea of 
" Not guilty " entered ; the judge saying to the re- 
quest to make a statement that it should be at 



40 TWO HARD CASES. 

some other time. Then the district attorney rose, 
and asked that the trial be set for the next Monday 
morning peremptorily. This was Saturday after- 
noon. If the case was to proceed on Monday, it 
meant a short shrift for the prisoner ; but could 
the government afford to refuse him time for de- 
fense ? 

Bellingham was hung, for the murder of Lord 
Percival, within seven days of the shooting, — an 
eternal disgrace to English jurisprudence, and an 
■unceasing regret ever since, if not for the hanging, 
at least for the unseemly haste. I knew that Gui- 
teau relied on the postponement of his trial until 
the American people had recovered from the shock 
of the shooting ; had had time to read his statement 
in the " New York Herald," and to make themselves 
heard in his behalf. He had told me in confidence 
at the jail that he believed Colonel Corkhill was a 
stalwart, and that, while it was his official duty to 
try him, he would favor him all he could. I won- 
dered, even with all his mountainous conceit, how 
he felt about it now. 

The government was ready ; if there Avas to be a 
defense, now was the time to act. The public 
knew of Mr. Scoville only as a brother-in-law of 
the prisoner, who, when apparently no one else 
would, had consented to assist in the defense of 
the most friendless man in America. When he 



TWO HARD CASES. 41 

rose there was an expectant hush in the court- 
room. A man, something past middle life, began to 
speak. His countenance was intelligent, but not 
one particularly impressive beyond a certain pre- 
possession that it gave you in favor of his honesty 
He desired to have the trial proceed without de 
lay ; but thus far he was alone in the case, without 
knowledge of criminal law, and necessarily igno- 
rant of much pert^iining to the practice of the law 
and the usasjes of courts in the District of Colum- 
bia. He would have to ask the indulgence of his 
honor in this, and, if the prisoner was to have 
an impartial trial, some time was required to pro- 
cure the jDresence of witnesses. The great diffi- 
culty of securing the attendance of those who 
might testify in behalf of the prisoner, which ev- 
erybody felt to be true, was stated, as well as the 
impossibility of getting the jDrisoner to aid him, or 
to realize that there was any need of testimony to 
the facts of his past life, he being apparently un- 
able to comprehend the gravity of his situation. 
The poverty of the prisoner made it necessary, if 
he was to have a fair defense, to take advantage of 
the United States law, that allowed the expense of 
witnesses, on both sides, to be paid by the govern- 
ment. As evidence that he had not been idle in 
preparing for the trial, he gave a long list of 
names of witnesses to be summoned from New 



42 TWO HARD CASES. 

Hampshire to Chicago, including those of super- 
intendents of hospitals for the insane, to testify to 
his insanity, and distinguished surgeons, who, if 
the newspapers had correctly reported them, had 
not hesitated to say that the malpractice of the 
doctors was Fes23onsible for the death of the Presi- 
dent. With no attempt at oratory, he spoke de- 
liberately, impressively, and earnestly. When he 
sat down there was a feeling that the honest coun- 
try gentleman, who did not understand criminal 
law, knew his rights, and was not afraid to ask for 
them ; it was clear that there would be a defense, 
and that it would not do to insist that the trial 
should proceed on Monday morning. But it had 
all the time been certain that, with Judge Cox on 
the bench, the prisoner would be protected in his 
rights. 

The trial was postponed for three weeks, after- 
wards to four, and, the court having adjourned, the 
prisoner was driven rapidly away to the jail, being 
taken from a side door in a hack, while the hoot- 
ing crowd vainly waited his entrance to the prison 
van, which had been diawn up in front of the 
court-house. The pleading to the indictment was 
over, and Guiteau safe in his cell again ; only one 
man having been placed in arrest, who had endeav- 
ored to borrow a ]nstol with which to shoot him 
in the court-room, and he was partially intoxicated 



TWO HARD CASES. 43 

at the time. In this connection, it is fitting to re- 
fer, once for all, to the public sentiment in regard 
to Guiteau tliat ])revailecl at the time of the trial, 
not alone in Washington, but throughout the coun- 
try. It was a universal feelins: of loathini; and in- 
dignation. A crime so needless and so dastardly, 
the utter worthlessness of the slayer in such yivid 
contrast with all that had made his yictim so be- 
loved, — is it any wonder that human nature, with 
feelings thus outraged, called for vengeance rather 
than justice ? As the newspaper press of the day 
stated it, " Hang him first, and try the question of 
insanity afterwards." 

There was no day of the ten weeks of the trial 
when the steps of the court-house and the side- 
walks in the vicinity were not crowded witli a mass 
of people, eager to see the greatest criminal of the 
century ; a crowd that jeered and hooted at him 
as he went shrinking from the court-house to ti)e 
prison van. A detachment of United States troops 
guarded the jail to prevent attempts at lynching 
him ; the best citizens feared that he might be 
taken out of the hands of the law. Twice he was 
sliot at : once by one of his guards ; once in the van, 
on his way back from the court-house. Express 
packages of hempen cord, letters and postal cards, 
witli all sorts of caricatures and threats, were sent 
him. Men and womeji throughout the country divl 



44 TWO HARD CASES. 

this, and fiends, in human shape, inclosed small- 
pox virus to Guiteau and Scoville, through the 
United States mails ; risking, in their broadcast 
sowing of the seeds of pestilence, the innocent 
lives of thousands, only to demonstrate that they 
were^ demons, Guiteau having been protected by 
vaccination. 

It may be supposed that this intense feeling 
against Guiteau was confined to certain classes of 
society. I think the testimony of impartial history 
will be that it was well-nigh universal. The rec- 
ord of the impanelment of the jury is instructive 
in this regard. Of the one hundred and thirty-one 
men sworn and examined for this purpose, only 
one claimed that he had no knowledo-e and had 
formed no opinion of the case, and he was peremp- 
torily challenged by the defense, on account of his 
ignorance ; twelve were disqualified under the law, 
from age, non-residence, or other like causes, and 
their opinions were not asked ; eighteen were i)er- 
emptorilj' challenged. Of the remaining one hun- 
dred and ten, thirty-six said, under oath, that they 
had "formed an opinion that would interfere with 
their rendering an impartial verdict;" twenty- 
seven had " formed a xery decided opinion," dis- 
qualifying them ; twenty-two had " formed a fixed 
opinion that no amount of evidence could change," 
or language to that effect; nine frankly volun- 



TWO HARD CASES. 45 

teered the statement that "he ought to be 
hanged;" one, that "no torture was too great 
for the man ; " one, that " he ought to be hanged, 
or burned, or something else, and he did not think 
there was any evidence in tlie United States to con- 
vince him any other way ; " one had " decidedly 
made up his mind that this plea of insanity is all 
bosh, and he did not think it could be changed;" 
and, as if to show that there is no rule without ex- 
ceptions, one said, " I have a very decided opin- 
ion, judge : I think the fellow was crazy. I don't 
think there could be anything that would pro- 
duce a change " (meaning in his opinion). Of the 
twelve men sworn as jurors, ten had formed and 
expressed opinions in the case ; one said " his 
mind was made up except on the question of insan- 
ity ; " and one claimed to be unbiased. To-day, 
the impartial trial by jury, that was wrested from 
the trembling hands of the English tyrant by the 
stern barons at Runnymede, stands between the 
humblest citizen and all wrong. Why? Simply 
because it is impartial. But for him, it might have 
been a stray bullet, or the nearest telegraph pole, 
or a slow fire under the shadow of the Capitol. 
Let us be thankful that history will record that in 
oul- indignation we still kept to the forms of law ; 
that he had his trial. 

The written plea which Guiteau had prepared, 
but was not allowed to read, is as follows : — 



46 TWO HARD CASES. 

" If the court please, I wish to say I have been 
terribly vilified by the press, and it has made some 
persons bitter and impulsive against me. On Oc- 
tober 6 the ' New York Herald ' published seven 
columns from my Autobiography, which I expect 
to issue soon in a book. Aside from the imperti- 
nent statements that I am a ' creature of the great- 
est vanity,' and that " I crave notoriety,' which are 
absolutely false, and similar unkind statements, I 
am indebted to the reporter and ' Herald ' for giv- 
ing me so fair a hearing. [Here he wrote, after- 
wards drawing his pen throught it, " It is a fair 
hearing, because they have published mostly my 
own words, and have not twisted my words against 
me. It is the first fair hearinij I have had in the 
case."] 1 plead not guilty to the indictment, and 
my defense is threefold : — 

" (1.) Insanity, in that it was God's act, and not 
mine. The Divine [the word " Divine " is intro- 
duced with a caret in Guiteau's manuscript] press- 
ure .on me to remove the President was so enor- 
mous that it destroyed mj free agency^ and there- 
fore I am not legally responsible for my act. 

'* (2.) The President died from malpractice. 
About three weeks after he was shot his physi- 
cians, after a careful examination, decided that he 
would recover. Two months after this official an- 
nouncement he died. Therefore, I say he was not 



TWO HARD CASES. 47 

fatally shot. If he had been well treated he would 
have recovered. 

" (3.) The President died in New Jersey, and 
therefore beyond the jurisdiction of this court. 
This malpractice and the President's death in New 
Jersey are special providences, and I am bound to 
avail myself of them on my trial, in justice to the 
Lord and myself. [He first wrote "For the Lord's 
reputation as well as my own," then drew a line 
through it.] 

" 1 undertake to say that the Lord is managing 
my case with eminent ability, and that He had a 
special object in allowing the President to die in 
New Jersey. 

" His manaofement of this case is worthv of Him 
as the Deity, and I have entire confidence in his 
disposition to protect me, and to send me forth to 
the world a free and innocent man. ' He uttered 
His voice,' says the Psalmist, ' and the earth 
melted.' 

" This is the God I served when I sought to re- 
move the President, and He is bound to take care of 
me. [Here he wrote again, and then erased, '• He 
uttered his voice and tlie earth melted," — He my 
God.] The Lord and the people do not seem to 
aoree in this case. 

" The people consider the President's removal an 
unbearable outrage and me a dastardly assassin, and 



48 TWO HARD CASES. 

they prayed the Lord to spare the President. For 
nearly three months the Lord kept the President 
at the point of death, and then allowed him to de< 
part, thereby confirming my act. The mere fact of 
the President's death is nothincj. 

" All men have died, and all men will die. Gen- 
eral Burnside died suddenly, about the time the 
President did. The President and General Burn- 
side were both splendid men, and no one regrets 
their departure more than L The President died 
from malpractice, and General Burnside from apo- 
plexy. Both were special providences, and the peo- 
ple ought to quietl}^ submit to the Lord in the mat- 
ter. The President would not have died, had the 
Lord not wanted him to go. I always think of the 
President's departure as a removal. I have no con- 
ception of it as a 'murder 'or as an 'assassination.' 
I had no feelins^ of wronof-doins^ when I souaht to 
remove him, because it was God's act, and not 
mine, for the good of the American people. 
" I plead not guilty to the indictment." 
This is a remarkable document to have been 
used by a lawyer to preface his plea of not guilty 
on his indictment for murder. Whatever view we 
may take of its author, it is w^orthy of a place in 
the record of his trial. One thing is self-evident : 
it was intended as a manifesto to the American 
people, rather thau a legal paper for the judicial 



TWO HARD CASES. 49 

ear alone. It belongs distinctively to the Guiteau 
literature. The " Washington Post," which repro- 
duced it in fac-simile in its issue of October 23, calls 
it a " weird plea." Certainly it was a discussion of 
the case from a stand-point which bears the same 
relation to ordinary reasoning that the scenery and 
incidents of a nightmare do to every-day life. 

The old court-house at \Yashington has not been 
without famous trials in its day, — a day which it is 
to be hoped is well-nigh over now, that a new build- 
ing is approaching completion. Certainly the room 
where the trial was held is a villainous box of a 
place, either draughty or stifling, depending upon 
whether the windows are open or closed, and 
wholly unworthy to be the hall of supreme justice 
at the nation's Capitol. It is a room full of shad- 
ows. Here, in 1836 Lawrence was arraigned for 
an attempt to shoot President Jackson ; here Gen- 
eral Sickles was acquitted of the murder of Philip 
Barton Key ; and here the eloquence of the senior 
Bradley and the pleading beauty of a young girl's 
face saved Mary Harris when on trial for her life. 
The defense in all these cases was insanity. They 
were memorable cases, that drew crowds to attend 
them, but the crowd bore no comparison to this 
which every day packed all the available spaces, in- 
cluding the corridors of approach, to their utmost 
capacity. The absorbing interest continued una- 
4 



50 TIVO BARD CASES. 

bated up to the last day of a trial of more than ten 
weeks' duration. 

The case was called on the 14th of November, 
but as three days were occupied in completing the 
panel of the jury the commencement of the trial 
may fairly be dated from the morning of the 17th 
of November, when, in the hushed expectancy of 
that crowded room, the district attorney. Colonel 
George B. Corkhill, rose to open the case for the 
government. He has been -styled the Napoleon of 
the Washington bar : personally he bears a some- 
what striking resemblance to the portraits of the 
first emperor. 1 think it no injustice to others to 
say that to Colonel Corkhill, in behalf of the gov- 
ernment, justly belongs the credit of the success- 
ful management of this case, from its inception to 
its close. I do not in this overlook the important 
services rendered by that eminent jurist, the asso- 
ciate counsel from the District ot" Columbia, Mr. 
Davido-e, nor those of the still more distini^uished 
Judge Porter, of New York ; neither do I foi-get the 
valuable aid, both in counsel and testimony, afforded 
by Dr. Gray as the medico-legal expert. But after 
all this, it still remains that the labor of preparing 
the case, the phmning, and I may say Napoleonic 
conduct of the campaign to its triumphant conclu- 
sion, were fairly his work. It will not do to say, in 
depreciation of this, that anybody could have ob- 



TWO HARD CASES. 51 

tained the same verdict, and that the trial was only 
a necessary legal formality, with hut one possible 
result. I should be willing to concede such to be 
the fact, though some might dispute it ; but this is 
not at all the point where the labor or the merit of 
Colonel Corkhill comes in. First, there w^as a seri- 
ous question of the jurisdiction of the court : emi- 
nent legal minds doubted if the case could be tried 
in the District of Columbia. What the district at- 
torney's i^rivate opinion in the matter was I have 
no means of knowing, but it is not in human nature 
that he should not wish to appear as the prosecut- 
ing officer in the case, after all the labor and study 
that he had devoted to it. This was a trial where 
the fame would be world-wide, and when a door 
stands open to an earthly immortality few men 
possess sufficient self-abnegation to close it ; the 
glory of the present and the fame of coming time 
make up an irresistible combination. It is cer- 
tainly reasonable to suppose that he believed the 
court had power to try the case. If he had any 
doubt about it, it is the more to his credit as a law- 
yer that he submitted an argument on which so 
eminent an authority and so preeminent a legal 
scholar as his honor Judge Cox sustained the point 
of jurisdiction. 

Secondly, the question of insanity. "Whether 
Guiteau, as a matter of fact, was sane or insane, 



52 TWO HARD CASES. 

whether it was not possible to hang him all the 
same if he was insane, must be regarded at best as 
but secondary considerations in the proper legal 
conduct of the case for the government. Legally, 
the point is well made that the prisoner at the bar 
is called upon to plead guilty or not guilty, and in- 
sanity in the eye of the law is by no means a sy- 
nonymous term with not guilty. I am satisfied 
that Colonel Corkhill himself believed in the man's 
sanity ; but he knew there were those who did not, 
and he saw the vital importance of having the right 
kind of expert medical testimony to convince both 
court and jury, not that the man, though partially 
insane, was still responsible for liis actions, but that 
he was in all respects perfectly sane ; as one of 
those experts poetically expressed it, " as sane a 
man as you would meet on a summer's day." 

In this he was entirely right. The hanging of an 
insane man, no matter how distinctly you may be 
able to show that he knew the difference between 
right and wrong in the case in question, is at the 
best an awkward business. The perj)lexing after- 
(luery will be forever coming up. Would he have 
committed the crime if he had not been insane, and, 
if he would not, had not disease something to do 
with the measure of his responsibility ? In behalf 
of the government in" this case, and no less in the 
interests of justice in the future, the district attor- 



TWO HARD CASES. 53 

ney determined tliat, so far as he could accomplish 
it, this trial should not only hang Guiteau as a per- 
fectly sane man, but that it should go far to sweep 
away all those metaphysical cobwebs of psycholog- 
ical medicine that he honestly considered delusions 
and fallacies, but fallacies which had beguiled too 
many doctors, and from whose influence even 
judges on the bench had not always been exem[)t. 
Hereafter, legal responsibility should not be one 
thing, and medical insanity another name for the 
same mental condition, but the doctors should have 
a chance to nnlearn what observation had taught 
them of disease, and the overwhelming weight of 
medical authority in this case should at least make 
clear what insanitv ouaht to be, and brinir the dis- 
ease up to the requirements of the law. "What 
could be more satisfactory from a lawyer's stand- 
point, or from the scientist's, unless the truth ? It 
was a Napoleonic conception, and for the purposes 
of the verdict in the case he was trying, wliich is as 
far as a lawyer has any right to look, was success- 
ful. Psychiatry for the first time took its stand 
amonof the exact sciences. 

Lastly, the district attorney fidly realized, what 
later even so astute a lawyer as Judge Porter seemed 
to have forgotten, that in this great state trial, to 
which our annals afford no parallel, it was of the 
first importance that the United States, through its 



54 TWO HARD CASES. 

prosecuting officers, should present to the minds 
of the jury, to the world at large, and to that yet 
larger audience who shall hereafter from a passion- 
less stand-point study it in history, the spectacle of 
a perfectly fiiir and impartially conducted trial, 
wherein the bereaved government asked oidy for 
justice, and not for vengeance. 

How difficult a task it was, and yet how perfectly 
it was accomplished in Colonel Corkhill's opening 
speech ! It would have been so easy to employ in- 
vective with thrilling effect ; there was such a 
temptation to rouse the passions, that only waited 
on the word: but calmly, briefly, yet clearly, in 
the hush of that court-room, he simply told the 
story of the crime, familiar to all who heard it, 
sufficient in its horror, insufficient only in its mo- 
tives ; the offense that " must needs come ; " the 
picture of the silent sleeper by the lake, whom we 
could not waken ; then the solemn words of sacred 
writ, pronouncing " woe to that man by whom the 
offense cometh," — and it was over. 

It was so well spoken that it drew tears from tiie 
( j^risoner's sister ; it was said so dispassionately that 
the prisoner mistook its art, and commended it. 

Mr. Bhiine followed, as the first witness, which 
w:is his light. The Titanic features of the great 
premier ])rojected on the page of history will form 
a fitting frontispiece to this state trial. The man 



TWO HARD CASES. 55 

who stood next to the President in the nation's 
counsels, the friend nearest to liim when he fell, 
he makes requisition for that blood. The magni- 
tude of the opening was in keeping with that of 
the crime. 

The evidence of eye-witnesses to the shooting and 
the arrest, together with that of the physicians in 
attendance, occupied nearly five days, and when it 
closed there was no question but the prima facie 
case, in all its harrowing details, had been fully- 
made out. The government rested, and Mr. Scoville 
began his opening for the defense. He was alone 
in the case, Mr. Robinson, who had been assigned 
by the court, having been, at his own request, hon- 
orably discharged that morning. Whatever may 
have been the merits of the question between 
counsel, the quarrel was not calculated to improve 
the situation for the prisoner, unless, possiblj'-, on 
the principle that sympathy goes out spontaneously 
for the weak and defenseless, and in that respect 
this man had thus far proved an exception to the 
rule. Mr. Robinson was in the case by reason of 
liis profession ; law was hereditary with him ; Mr. 
Scoville was in it by reason of his wife. Mr. Rob- 
inson was at home in his profession, and with the 
instincts of a true lawyer he determined to concede 
nothing ; his client was entitled to have every 
point contested. Whatever error might be found 



56 TWO HARD CASES. 

in tlie proceedings, whatever question of jurisdic- 
tion might be brought, wliatever doubt might arise 
in resrard to the medical treatment of the Presi- 
dent, whatever defect of reason or taint of blood 
could be shown to exist in the prisoner, he should 
have the benefit of it. Mr. Scoville, on the other 
hand, knew very little of criminal law, but some- 
thing of equity. He had said that if he did not 
believe Guiteau insane he would not have con- 
sented to aid in his defense. There seems to be 
no good reason to doubt that he was honest in this, 
not more than to doubt that Colonel Corkhill was 
honest in his belief tliat he was sane. Pie said, The 
people are willing to hear a fair defense on that 
ground, but will tolerate no legal quibbles in this 
case ; this is the only defense I will allow ; on this 
I can honestly stand. So they parted. The lawyer, 
in the attempt to discharge his duty, had acted with 
the soundest reason ; but the brother-in-law was 
prompted by instinct, whose impulses are outside of 
reason, and unerringly right. 

Tlie opening for the defense occupied a consid- 
erable part of three days. It was discursive and 
too long ; it was plain that INIr. Scoville was not 
accustomed to the work. At times the interrup- 
tions by the prisoner were embarrassing, but the 
effect of the whole on the jury and audience was 
good. It was necessary to convince them that the 



TIVO HARD CASES. 57 

defense of insanity was an honest one, and honestly 
made, and in this he succeeded. When, towards 
the close of the opening, in tlie midst of a serious in- 
terruption from the prisoner, Colonel Corkhill rose 
to object, and unfortunately spoke of Mr. Scoville 
as " attempting to get into a public altercation 
with the prisoner," Mr. Scoville responded with 
becoming dignity, and a slight ripple of approba- 
tion showed tliat the assembly, whatever they might 
think of the prisoner, believed in the honest inten- 
tion of his counsel. 

I have alluded to the interruptions by the pris- 
oner and to the so-called " applause," and may as 
well call attention to them at this point as any- 
other. A great deal of comment, not overwise, 
has been made about the laughter and applause at 
this trial, so frequently reported by the daily press. 
The newspaper statements convey an entirely erro- 
neous impression in regard to the fact. The court- 
room was every day packed with s[)ectators, and 
during the eight weeks that I was present the con- 
duct was, with rare exception, in the language of 
tlie diurnal admonition of Marshal Henry, " with 
tlie same propriety as if they were at church." 
Indeed, I have heard laughter and applause in 
Henry Ward Beecher's church out of all propor- 
tion to anything that I observed in the court-room. 
Deputies, distributed through the room, promptly 



58 TWO HARD CASES. 

silenced any whispering or moving about in the 
crowd. 

The prolonged stillness was sometimes remarka- 
ble. It may be thought that the solemnity of the 
occasion would be, in itself, enough to repress any- 
thing like levity. A merciful provision in our oi-- 
ganization is that the deej^est grief cannot be in- 
definitely prolonged ; the strain would else prove 
fatal, or reason would be dethroned. Something 
dissolves away with the tears, and we have found 
relief. The sadness of a funeral, even, could not be 
prolonged through ten weeks ; it would become 
ludicrous, if not intolerable. We all recall such 
public funerals. But while the solemnity of the 
caurt-room wore off, there was no lack of respect- 
ful decorum except on the part of the prisoner. Of 
applause there was but the slightest ripple ; only 
one day did I hear anything noisy in that line, 
and this was by a conspicuous small boy, who was 
promptly ejected by the deputy marshal. There 
were abundant occasions to provoke laughter, but 
the demonstration seldom amounted to more than 
a slight rustle. Once, when a medical witness held 
up to view, for the first time, the white plaster cast 
of Gulteau's head, the prisoner called out from tlie 
dock, '" That looks like Humpty Dumpty ! " and the 
picture was so true to life that there was an audi- 
ble smile tiirouirh the room. So far from the court 



TWO HARD CASES. 59 

presenting the appearance of an amusement hall, 
as some sensational penny-a-liners would make us 
believe, I am sure that, excepting the prisoner, 
every one present, from the judge on the bench to 
the venturesome small bov clinoinop at the window, 
endeavored to maintain perfect decorum ; and if 
any laughter or aj^plause occurred it was forced 
from them by the situation at the moment, and was, 
in a sense, involuntary. The interruptions by the 
prisoner were frequent, persistent, and of quite 
another character ; and as these have been very 
differently estimated, according to the stand-point 
and convictions of the observer, I prefer to leave 
their consideration until the record of the case has 
been more fully presented. It is enough to say 
here that, so far from being manifestations of a 
feigned insanity, they wei-e part and parcel of 
Guiteau's make-up, and were eminently character- 
istic of the man. 

The evidence introduced for the defense and in 
rebuttal by the government occupied nearly six 
weeks of the trial, and embraced all points in the 
career of the prisoner, in the family history and 
elsewhere, that might be supposed to throw any 
light upon the mental condition of Guiteau on the 
second day of July, 1881. The rulings of the court 
were liberal in this. " If your honor please," said 
Mr. Scoville in his opening, " this case depends en- 



60 TWO HARD CASES. 

tirely upon showing the condition of the prisoner's 
mind." AVell did his honor reply, " I understand 
that, and I do not propose that you shall be excluded 
from the benefit of any testimony bearing upon that 
point." Having that single purpose in view, we 
shall best arrive at it by a study of all the facts, 
without reference to the order in which they were 
brought out in the testimony, or elsewhere, satisfy- 
ing ourselves only that they are facts. The med- 
ical expert testimony is quite another matter ; that 
should be considered by itself. 

The oi'iginal Guiteau stock in this country was 
French Huguenot. The question of the hereditary 
character of insanity properly conies in with the 
discussion of the testimony of the medical experts, 
but whatever may be said in regard to the inher- 
itance of disease, I believe the world is agreed that 
certain family jieculiarities, traits of character, and 
personal features are transmitted. "Witness the royal 
house of Hapsburg, that has kept its thick upper 
lip for centuries. The old Huguenot braved much 
and suffered much for his religious convictions ; the 
religious element of character was one strong enougli 
to bear transmission many times. In the midst of 
a generation of agnostics it appears in John W. 
Guiteau to-day. Mentally the Guiteaus were a 
strong race ; at least so far as we are able to judge 
from the meagre details of their history in our 
hands. 



TWO HARD CASES. 61 

The gTeat-grandfatlier and the grandfatlier of 
the prisoner were leading country physicians, at a 
time when it indicated something both in physical 
and mental vigor to be a doctor in charge of a thirty- 
mile circuit in the country. Communities settled 
their phj^sician then much as they did their minis- 
ter, for life ; they were men whose professional 
opinion was law, and respected as sucli. The de- 
scendants of collateral branches of Guiteau's family 
are prominent and respected citizens iu different 
localities of the State of New York at tlie present 
time. It is in evidence respecting the father of the 
prisoner that he had been elected again and again 
to offices of trust and responsibility ; that on account 
of his services in the cause of education a school 
had been named in his honoi- in his Western liome ; 
and one w^itness ranked him as the third man in 
his county. 

From a medical stand-point the trouble in the 
Guiteau family begins three generations back. 
For posterity, the union of Francis Guiteau and 
Hannah Wilson was unfortunate, whatever m:ty 
have been the domestic felicity of their married 
life. The old French and the old Scotcli blood 
were there unhappily mingled. The mother gave 
birth to eleven children, dying herself of " old-fash- 
ioned consumption " at the advanced age of seventy- 
seven years. Of their eleven children, one lived only 



62 TWO HARD CASES. 

a few hours ; ten grew up to adult age. Of these, 
five, Julius, Calvin, Francis, Mary, and Julia, and 
perhaps the sixth, Sophronia, died of pulmonary 
disease. It is difficult to believe that this happened 
independent of any family disposition. We class 
consumption among the constitutional diseases pre- 
disposing to insanity, and two of the above, Francis 
and Julia, were said to have been at one time in- 
sane, Francis dying of consumption in the Blooming- 
dale Asylum for the Insane. Still another sister, 
Anna C. Parker, was thought to have been insane 
early in her married life. The proof of this at the 
trial, in the case of Mrs. Parker, depended entirely, 
and in that of Mrs. Maynard largely, upon the 
deposition of a highly respectable old gentleman 
over eighty years of age, to facts that cume under 
his observation more than fifty years before. As 
a rule, age remembers the scenes of, early life viv- 
idly, even after the time when recent events are 
obliterated. It should be said, in regard to Turner's 
deposition, that at the time when he remarked a 
"ilightiness " in Mrs. JMaynard he was very intimate 
in the family, his own little girl, who had been left 
motherless, making it her home, so that very nat- 
urally he would closely observe the action and 
words of Mrs. IMaynard. It was also claimed that 
Mrs. Maynard was insane at the time of her death, 
Mr. Turner deposing that he was so informed by 



TWO HARD CASES. 63 

her husband some years after that event ; and a wit- 
ness named Davis testified that he saw her durinof 
her last ilhiess, when she manifested insane delu- 
sions. To refute this, the government brought a 
daugliter of Mrs. Maynard, ]\Irs. Wilson, appar- 
ently a very truthful woman, who testified that she 
nursed her mother day and night during her last 
sickness, and that she could not have been insane 
at that time ; that not only she was not insane 
tlien, but she never lieard of her being insane at 
any other time, or that her aunt Parker had ever 
been so. The effect of this is to throw a doubt on 
the truth of Turner's deposition ; but so far as that 
related to the witness's personal observation of Mrs. 
Maynard and Mrs. Parker it was in regard to oc- 
currences before the birth of Mrs. Wilson, or when 
she was an infant, and insanity in the family is not 
a topic likely to be discussed before the children ; 
indeed, Mrs. AVilson distinctly stated that she never 
heard of the insanity of her uncle Francis before, 
though it was of undisputed record that he died in 
an insane hospital. There seems to be no good 
reason to doubt that Turner told the truth in testi- 
fying to what he had observed of these two women 
when he was a young man ; his recollection of state- 
ments made to him in later life he may have con- 
fused. It was further shown that Mrs. Parker had 
a son and Mrs. Maynard a daughter insane ; but the 



64 TWO HARD CASES. 

inference of the mother's insanity from that of the 
child is not conclusive, and in tlie present instance 
was very much weakened, at least, by the fact that 
the father of the one was intemperate, and of the 
other suicidally insane. In the case of Mrs. Par- 
ker, as if insanity was not enough, she died of can- 
cer, adding another to the diseases developed in this 
ill-starred family that have usually been classed as 
hereditary. Abram Guiteau died intemperate and 
dissipated, broken down in body, as his death from 
erysipelas shows. There is no proof of insanity? 
but he had probably very little strength of mind ; 
whatever ailed him his life developed unfortunately. 
It was the misfortune of the remaining daughter, 
Hannah, — no, I am not sure that it was a misfor- 
tune — to have been cut off by cholera before con- 
sumption, or cancer, or insanit}^ had made its ap- 
pearance. 

The last child born to Francis Guiteau and Han- 
nah Wilson, Luther W. Guiteau, was the father of 
Charles J., who is said to bear a striking personal 
resemblance to his sire. The testimony both for 
the prosecution and the defense is in accord in re- 
gard to his ability and upright character, but is con- 
flicting respecting his mental condition. '" I never 
knew a more pure man in my life," testified one 
who believed him " off " in religion and politics. 
*' Always interested in the cause of education, tem- 



TWO HARD CASES. 65 

perance, or anything in that direction tliat was 
good," said a physician wlio had known him for 
years, attended him in his hist siclvuess, and testified 
that he " never saw the slightest indications of any 
mental trouble in the man." " The most intensely 
honest and sincere mail I ever met ; " this from one 
who believed there was a trace of insanity in him, 
and that when he said " Take a knife and slay him 
as Abraham did Isaac," he actually meant it, being 
in a frenzy that he mistook for inspiration. " Re- 
liable, honest, clear-headed, business man ; " this 
from one who, when told by him that he did not ex- 
pect to die, " never thought that he really believed 
it, but that he had a hope that by living a pure life, 
such as was required by the New Testament, that 
possibly he might not die," 

These extracts, perhaps, sufficiently indicate the 
direction of the testimony, its accord and discord. 
There seems no a'ood reason to doubt that both 
classes were honest in their belief. Witnesses who 
had come in contact with Luther W. Guiteau in 
business relations, and the casual meetings of daily 
intercourse, were impressed with his strong sense, 
his methodic business ways, his truthful life, and 
never dreamed that he was not a perfectly sane 
man, of remarkably even balanced mind. Those 
who saw him in all moods, who lived with him in 
his home, heard him speak in religious meetings, 
5 



f)6 TWO HARD CASES. 

and knew his inner life, were equally impressed with 
his good natural sense, his unquestioned ability, 
and perfect truthfulness. All the more, therefore, 
they felt that there was at times something in his 
actions and his words that all the Huguenot blood 
in his veins, with the intensiij)^ which is common to 
religious convictions, could not explain; they felt 
that there was an insanity there, often latent, some- 
times revealed. In his ecstasy he believed that by 
prayer and the laying on of hands he could himself 
raise the sick to health, and that he might attain, 
nay, had already attained, to a union with Christ, 
in which he should live forever on the earth ; not, 
in the language of the I^piscopal service, that he 
should " not die eternally," but that this crumbling 
tabernacle of the flesh should never pass away. 

Theoretically, he accepted all the doctrines of 
the perfectionist, John 11. Noyes, the founder of 
the Oneida Community, a socialistic band which, 
in followino- those doctrines to their legitimate re- 
suits, became a perfect sink of licentiousness ; but 
they never soiled the whiteness of his soul. To 
Luther AV. Guiteau, the community of John II. 
Noyes seemed the beginning of the setting up of 
the kingdom of lieaven on earth ; his followers 
pure as the angels, " who neither marry nor are 
given in marriage." 

Had it been possible, the defense should have 



TWO HARD CASES. 67 

made their testimony a unit on the question of the 
father's mental condition, whether sane or insane. 
As it was, when tliey closed they had raised a ques- 
tion of the sanity rather than established his in- 
sanity, and on this question the house of Guiteau 
was "divided against* itself." The prisoner said 
that his father was " badly cranked " on religion. 
IVIrs. Scoville leaves this to be inferred from a 
quoted remark of her uncle Maynard, rather tlian 
from any direct statement of her own ; while John, 
W'ho adopts many of the singular religious beliefs 
of his father as his own, stoutly asserts that " he 
never saw anythincr iu him that in the slightest de- 
gree indicated him to be of unsound mind." It is 
true it was in evidence that, during the years in 
which insanity was claimed, John liardly saw his 
father, and by his interruptions in the court-room 
he made it an open secret tliat there was a quarrel 
between him and the counsel for the defense on the 
question of the insanity in the family being brought 
into the trial. Somehow, what is simply the great- 
est misfortune which can afflict humanity has come 
to be reirarded as a disixrace. 

The prosecution, on the other hand, fully realiz- 
ing the vital importance of establishing the perfect 
mental soundness of the father, brought a number 
of the leading citizens of Freeport, Hi., some of 
whom had known him for twenty-five, thirty, forty 



68 TWO HARD CASES. 

years. They testified to the respect which he 
commanded, the very responsible positions which 
he had held, even to the day of his death, — offices 
which certainly would not have been intrusted to 
a man known to be insane ; that in all their inter- 
course they had never suspected the slightest men- 
tal unsoundness in him. The only point that the 
defense was able to make in the cross-examination 
was that, for the most part, these men had not con- 
versed with him on religious matters, and did not 
know his belief ; or, if they had heard him on those 
topics, it was in the latter 3'ears of his life, when 
he had considerably modified his views. The one 
witness for the government who had listened to his 
statement that he did not expect to die, did not 
think he really believed it. It was shown that he 
had employed physicians in the care of his family, 
indicating that he did not feel that his ability to 
heal the sick rendered the use of medicines unnec- 
essary ; that as early as 1867 he had taken out a pol- 
icy in an insurance company on his own life; also 
that, during the last years of his life, he had made 
his will, which a man believing that he would never 
die would, obviously, not have done. But grant 
that at one time in his life, level-headed though he 
was, he imbibed strange religious ideas; mistaken 
religious belief is common, and is not, in itself, evi- 
dence of insanity. Tiiis point was properly made 



TWO HARD CASES. 69 

by the government. Insanity is a mental disorder, 
and not an intellectual process. But because mis- 
taken religious belief is not insanity, and because 
Lutlier AV. Guiteau entertained a mistaken religious 
belief, you cannot, therefore, reason that he was not 
insane. 

The fact of sanit}^ or insanity depends, not on 
what a man thinks, but how he thinks it. The 
point which the defense failed to make on the 
question of Luther W. Guiteau's religious belief is 
that, identically, the same belief of power to heal 
the sick by the laying on of hands may be the 
normal outa;rowth of the hiohest devotional feelino: 
in one person's mind, and in that of another the 
result of delusion springing from insanity. One 
accustomed to the study of insane })ersons, by as- 
sociating with them, can generally determine, after 
observing the case for a time, whether it results 
from a disordered mind or religious zeal ; and his 
decision is likely to depend quite as much upon the 
actions, and manner, and whole personal appear- 
ance of the individual, as upon the ideas expressed. 
But while the defense gave us something of this 
in the testimony of Thomas North, afterwards in- 
geniously ridiculed by Mr. Davidge as "word pict- 
ures," it failed to convince the experts that he was 
msane ; and in view of the whole testimony sub- 
mitted, I think the jury could hardly avoid the con- 



70 TWO HARD CASES. 

elusion that the father of the prisoner was a man 
whose sanity would never have been questioned 
but for the trial of his son. 

The importance, in a doubtful case of this kind, 
of having the testimony of some person skilled in 
observing the insane, who may have had an oppor- 
tunity of personally studying the case at the time 
when insanity is claimed, can hardly be overesti- 
mated. It would certainly be entitled to great 
weight, and, in a doubtful issue, it might turn the 
scale. Too late, the defense endeavored to intro- 
duce the testimony of Dr. Andrew IMcFarland, of 
Jacksonville, 111., a superintendent of hospitals for 
the insane, of more than thirty years' experience, 
and, as the junior counsel for the defense remarked, 
the " peer of any man who had testified in the case." 
He had enjoyed just the opportunity needed to 
study the mental condition of Luther W. Guiteau, 
at his hospital, in 1864, at the exact time when, as 
claimed by the defense, he was partially insane. 

At last, when the long array of experts had fin- 
ished, there was sitting in the court-room the ex- 
pert who knew more of the real mental condition 
of Luther W. Guiteau, at one time in his life, than 
any witness who had testified. Here was the man 
who, perhaps, would supply the "missing link" in 
the argument for hereditary transmission, and, by 
his testimony, turn the scale in favor of the doubt. 



TJVO HARD CASES. 71 

It was too late, for the court ruled that to re- 
open the case it must be testimony that would be 
ground for granting a new trial ; that any facts in 
regard to the father would be, at best, but cumula- 
tive of what had been already given, and the in- 
sanity of the father, even if proved, would not 
establish that of the son, and any testimony that 
Dr. McFarland might give in regard to the pris- 
oner could only be an opinion, of which there had 
been so many before. This was, doubtless, good 
law, and so Dr. McFarland went back as he came. 
But to the impartial review of history nothing 
comes too late ; all tlie facts are none too many for 
the truth, and I take the liberty to insert here a 
letter received from Dr. McFarland since the trial 
closed : — 

Oak Lawn Retueat, Jacks(inville, III., 
April 5, 1882. 

Dear Sir, — Your valued favor of the 2d 
reached me just as I am but fairly convalescent 
from a severe sickness, dating from a cold taken 
while in protracted court attendance in Colorado, 
in February. I am but just getting out of bed, and 
am altogether unequal to correspondence ; have 
hardly more than signed my name for the past 
month. 

The only real fact I have bearing at all on the 
great criminal you refer to, is one which has im- 



72 TWO HARD CASES. 

pressed me with all the force that we give to the 
principle of lieredity. From tlie instant of liearing 
who the assaihxnt of the President was, my theory 
of the crime was what it substantially is now. 

The father of Guitean — a total stranger — visited 
me in 1864. He came w^ith his second wife and 
the latter's insane sister. The patient was verging 
on complete exhaustion, and he proposed staying a 
few days, remaining part of a week. But he soon 
seemed to lose all interest whatever in the patient, 
and devoted all his time and took up all of mine, 
to the limit at least of my courtesy, in following 
me up with a strain of discourse, the staple of 
which I perceived to be delusional, though mingled 
with much fruit of reading, and an intelligence of 
quite liigh order for a man of his standing. It was 
not the blunt proposition of actual insane absurdi- 
ties, for his intelligent caution prevented his going 
so far ; but he would state his theory, and appeal to 
me with some such query as, " Now is there any- 
thing in that contrary to reason ? " or, '' Does n't 
the Bible support that view ? " or, " Has n't your 
experience proved this or that?" etc. His tone 
was that of a man who had long brooded in secret 
over disordered fancies, and who had taken that 
chance to set some backinjx. As I now recollect, 
he believed in the doctrine of metempsychosis ; that 
death w^as the exchange of the effete and worn-out 



T]VO II A ED CASES. 73 

body for a new-created, infantile one. But his 
great theme was insanity, its nature and causation. 
His view (as I got it) was that insanity was just 
what New Testament Scripture makes it, mere 
diabolical possession, and that superior virtue, such 
as Jesus Christ possessed, could cast it out now 
the same as in that instance. The testimony of 
John W. Guiteau in regard to the belief of the 
whole family on this subject is substantially what 
the father unfolded at that time. 

On Sunday,- 1 being at church, he availed himself 
of the opi^ortuuity to visit the ward, where his sister- 
in-law was, to make practical demonstration of his 
powers in the way of exorcism. I heard ludicrous 
accounts of his methods over different patients, but 
was not a witness of them. They consisted, as I 
learned, in standing in a devotional attitude over 
the patient, muttering something inaudibly, and 
making passes with his hands. I don't think it was 
so much the erratic beliefs of the man that im- 
pressed me as it was the complete absorption of all 
his thought in them, his persistent return to the 
same topics whenever he caught me for a moment 
at leisure, and the general complexion of the thought 
as it strikes the observer. 

Now, while the delusions of the father and the 
son prove the opposite of each other in their ten- 
dencies, and especially their results, the fundamen- 



74 TWO HARD CASES. 

tal nature of tlie two is the same, — a belief in the 
power to act by supernatural agency ; for this is 
what C- J. Guiteau's talk amounts to, w^hen you sift 
it out from the chaff of his wild and irrelevant rhod- 
omontade. lie has the same fearlessness, defiance, 
and bombast, the same faith in the final outcome, 
that all the lunatics have who believe themselves 
divinely led, and so he will be to his last breath. 

A remark in yours leads me to add that I have 
no disposition to increase the public literature of 
this subject, but will hail your contribution with 
pleasure. With apologies for the imperfectness of 
the above. Very truly yours, 

Andrew McFarland. 

Dr. W. W. Godding. 

Dr. McFarland has been so long and so widely 
known and respected as a Nestor among experts on 
insanity that his letter needs no commentary of 
mine. From these observations of Dr. McFarland 
in 1864, and those of Thomas North, made at an 
earlier, also at a later, date, taken in connection 
with the testimony for the government, we may 
conclude that, while the mind of Luther W. Guiteau 
was at times on the border-land and at times over- 
stepped the bounds of sanity, he was not contin- 
uously insane ; and it is not unlikely that the very 
method and regularity of his business life, the close 



TWO HARD CASES. 75 

attention which his duties as a cashier demanded, 
acted as a wholesome restraint to .the religious 
speculations springing from his insane tempera- 
ment, and even helped to disengage the "delicate 
skein of tliought," already " tangled," very much 
as the dull round of dail}- duty in the East India 
House is believed to have saved the brilliant mind 
of Charles Lamb from a second attack of the in- 
sanity which so often recurred in his sister. 

This is Guiteau's inheritance on the father's side. 
We have no evidence of insanity in his mother, but 
the testimony both for the government and the 
defense is in accord that slie was a feeble, sick 
woman long before, and for years after, the birth 
of Charles ; indeed, up to the time of her death. 

Frona the medical stand-point, this is the second 
mistake in the marriages of the Guiteau family. 
There is but a dim outline of the mother, and that 
soon vanishes, but not till six children are born in 
that wedlock. There is the recollection of a lit- 
tle girl, but confirmed by others, of a pale, sick 
mother, who was bled, with shaven head ; neuiMl- 
gia they called it, and the house hushed from 
noise. Yet living children are born to that motliei" ! 
John and Francis, coming before her illness, are 
livinof, and testified at the trial. John inherits the 
father's theology and some of his i^eculiarities. 
Mrs. Scoville, in all this trying ordeal, has shown 



76 TWO HARD CASES. 

a touching devotion and strong purpose, combined 
with most Wt>manly weakness ; of more painful 
later rumors I have no authority to speak, not 
knowinoj the facts. She is said to liave loni^ suf- 
fered from a nervous disease. A third chihl, a son, 
who dies in infancy, is born, perhaps after the com- 
mencement of tlie mother's illness ; then Charles J., 
while the mother is kept secluded and away from 
nbise in that upper room ; then another man child, 
who is born deformed, and lives but two vears ; 
and then a girl, who dies at twenty months of what 
the sister calls quick consumption, and Charles is 
coughing from the first, and it was said he, too, was 
born with consumption ; but the cough disappears, 
and he lived to grow up, who should have died, 
with the heritaire that father and mother brought 
him. It is a comfortincj doa'ma that disease is not 
hereditary : would that it were a fact. 

"She sees her little bud put forth its leaves ; 
What may the fruit be vet '? 1 know not, — Cain was Eve's." 

A nervous, restless boy, bright and precocious 
in activity, but backward in sense, a contradiction 
from the start. His grandfather Howe said he was 
the smartest Guiteau he knew of, and by his will 
left him a thousand dollars ; his father said " he 
knew he could speak plain," and at the age of six 
floofged him to improve his orthoepy, without result. 
Sunderland, the teacher who was successful in 



TWO HARD CASES. 77 

treating tliis later, testifies that it was a difficulty 
in articulating or pronouncing words. 

It is nothing strange that a child should have 
trouble in producing certain sounds, and under 
judicious management this seems to have disap- 
peared ; but that he should be unable to associate 
ideas with a whipping, that saps the very founda- 
tion of early education, — there must be something 
wrong with such a boy. Mrs. Scoville says, in her 
testimony, " Father would whip him, and after he 
had punished him he would say, ' Now say pail ; ' 
and he would say ' qnail ' every time." Neither 
father nor son seemed to have auy realizing sense 
of the situation at the time. That has been the 
trouble with the son all through his life. 

Before he was seven years old his mother died ; 
it mattered very little when, for from that poor 
sick woman he could never have had a mother's 
care. He said to me in jail, with a certain pathos, 
" I never knew, when a child, what it was to have 
a mother." It would seem that for a time after his 
mother's death the boy " boarded round." lie was 
with his grandfather Howe, and with his uncle. 
Sometimes his father was with him, oftener not. 
Some schooling in winter, more playing with boys 
about the wharf, at his grandfather's. Now and 
then comes in the kindly oversight of a married 
sister, and there is six months at school with a 



78 TWO HARD CASES. 

Cliicago teacher. Then his father marries again, 
and, though he rnns away from home on tlie an- 
nouncement, and is '• dead-lieaded" on the railroad 
to Chicago, at the age of thirteen he returns to the 
enjoyment of that father's discipline and a step- 
mother's care. 

A year or two further on, we find him in a 
music store at DavenjDort, Iowa. Something goes 
wrong there, and there is a six months' term in a 
commercial college in Chicago, boarding, meantime, 
with his sister. Then he goes back to his father, 
copying deeds as a deputy clerk in liis ollice, and 
living at home till, at the age of seventeen, not 
with his father's approbation, but with a consent 
reluctantly given, he decides to spend a ])ortion of 
his grandfather's legacy in acquiring a collegiate 
educiition, and places himself in a prei)aratory 
school at Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the autumn 
of 1859. 

The outlines of this formative stage of his life 
are indistinct in the testimony given, and his coun- 
sel, in their argument, represent him when entering 
school at Ann Arbor as a guileless youth, gentle 
and affectionate, standing on the threshold of his 
opening manhood clad in the purity of an unsullied 
life, with a high ideal in his heart. Careful exam- 
ination shows this to be a matter of whitewashing. 
Only meagre facts of this period are in our posses- 



TWO HARD CASES. 79 

sion. but such as they are they do not justif}^ the 
picture. Mrs. Scoville calls him a " troublesome 
child " on account of a restless activity, but remem- 
bers him at the age of thirteen as an affectionate 
lad, and very much attached to her. John W. 
Guiteau says he was " nervous " in his activity as 
a child ; that at one time his father offered him ten 
cents to keep his hands and feet still for five min- 
utes, but he did not earn the money. This rest- 
lessness has continued a marked feature in his life 
up to the present time. 

Unrest is a natural trait of human character ; 
quaint old George Herbert recognizes the want of 
rest among the gifts God gave to man, and styles it 
a " repining restlessness." Those who have been 
much among the insane do not need to be told that 
in tliem this trait is often exaggerated, and from a 
" repining '' it becomes, to their peace of mind, a 
consuming restlessness. In Guiteau we sliall see 
more of this farther on, but up to the age of seven- 
teen it is very marked. I find no evidence that he 
was a good boy. His sister's love went out towards 
him from the first, — it will leave him, never ; but, 
with this exception, he seems to have made no 
friend through his life. 

Thomas North, who lived in the family, and 
knew him at the age of fifteen, testified that " he 
never seemed to have a friend or associate with 



80 TWO HARD CASES. 

anybody of either sex ; " that he manifested an of- 
fensive egotism in the office, wishing to usm'p the 
duties of other clerks. " The biggest bump on his 
head seemed to me at that time to be that of ego- 
tism." North also testifies to a fight at the table 
between him and his father, during the last year of 
his residence at home. It would seem that his 
fatlier neglected and flogged him by turns. The 
son, wayward at first, grew more so ; he acquired 
some bad habits, and, singularly enough, omitted 
others ; that contradiction remains in him to-day. 
His father, with his strange theology, seems early 
to have classed him with the " devil's seed," and 
where he planted him, what was there to hinder 
his taking root ? 

In 18G8, Luther TV. Guiteau, with perhaps a 
dim perception of the fact that he had not been 
all that a father should be, even to a " devel's 
seed," wrote Charles a letter, from which I take 
the liberty to make the following extract, as 
throwing some light upon Guiteau's boyhood : — 

" Soon after your mother's death, our family be- 
came somewhat scattered. I was much away fiom 
home, and gradually, for tlie want of fidelity on my 
part, you became more and more insubordinate, for 
tlie want of proper discipline- and restraint, until I 
lost all, or nearly all, the control of you, which I 
had tlie right, and ought to have exercised as your 



TWO- HARD CASES. 81 

father. Indeed, my discipline was absolutely loose, 
and you were not brought up in the spirit of obedi- 
ence; but have had your own way, for the most 
part, since you were ei^ht or ten yeai's of age. 
For instance, when you took it into your head that 
you wanted to go to Davenport, instead of having 
you stay with me at Freeport, as my own judgment 
dictated, and learning a trade, and getting into 
some useful employment here at home, where I 
could look after you, I consented to your going 
there ; and then when you wanted things that 
your earnings or the money I furnished you did 
not warrant, you were tempted, and did do things 
that since you have had reason greatly to regret, 
and have acknowledged yourself as having been 
guilty of things that were criminal according to 
human as well as divine law." 

Whatever it miglit have accomplished earlier, in 
1868 it was too late for discipline, and entreaty 
proved unavailing. But was it the father's neg- 
lect ? Or did it happen to Julia Katherine to in- 
herit consumption, to Luther Theodore to be born 
with a crooked limb, and to Charles Julius to come 
into the world with a crooked mind ? And the old- 
time question recurs, " Who did sin, this man or his 
parents, that he was born blind ? " But whether 
due to taint of blood or vicious training, the known 
facts indicate that he was mentally wrong or wicked, 
6 



82 TWO HARD CASES. 

probably both, in early life. He may have had a 
genuine longing for an education, that led him to 
Ann Arbor ; it may have been the old restless de- 
sire for change. 

The new departure, a few months later, that re- 
sulted in his abandoning a secular education for 
the spiritual development and socialistic training of 
the Oneida Community, was the most remarkable 
change in his whole life, and deserves to be care- 
fully studied for the light that it throws on his 
character, and the indication which it affords of his 
real mental condition. 

What are the facts ? In the spring of 1859, as 
we gather from a letter in evidence, written by 
him to his sister, he believed his father would, at 
the expiration of his term of office, enter the 
Oneida Community. Guiteau himself was full of 
the idea of an education, as he egotistically says, 
" proposing to be educated physically, intellectually, 
and morally." Where to go to school was the 
question, and how. Evidently he had then no de- 
sire to go with his father to Oneida. lie says he 
had not spoken to him about his education, fearing 
his opposition. 

In the summer he makes up his mind for the op- 
tional course at the University of Michigan, but 
has not yet ventured to approach his father on the 
subject. September 5 he writes that he has his 



TWO HARD CASES. 83 

father's consent. In his testimony he says it was 
against his father's wishes ; that his father's great 
anxiety was to save his soul through the Oneida 
Community ; and that after he went to Ann Arbor 
his father plied him with the Community publica- 
tions and foolscap letters of his own on the same 
topic. October 16, in a letter, from Ann Arbor to 
Mr. Scoville, he says he has passed examination 
in certain branches, and entered the preparatory 
school ; that he is getting on well with his studies 
thus far, but he will not be able to enter the Uni- 
versity that winter, as he had expected, on account 
of his Latin. He states that he had entered the 
classical department, the very thing which three 
months before he had decided not to do. Kovem- 
ber 6 he writes to his sister that, entei'ing the school 
some five weeks behind the class, he had been study- 
ing all he could to catch up with them, and tliat he 
is frettins alontj very well ; then follows an exhor- 
tation to seek salvation, with abundant Scripture 
quotations of the love of Christ, and a confession 
that he is drawn towards the doctrines of John H. 
Noyes and the Oneida Community. 

The letter of the 16th of October to his sister's 
husband had nothing of this, while this, three weeks 
later, to her is full of it. In those three weeks he 
has experienced a great change. Six months be- 
fore, thinking his father would go with his family 



84 T]VO HARD CASES. 

to the Community, having no inclination that way 
himself, he decides to leave home and get an educa- 
tion. Feeling that his father will oppose it, he 
consults Mr. and Mrs. Scoviile, hoping for their 
support. In September he gains the reluctant 
consent of his father, and starts out on his loni;- 
cherished scheme ; and now, in November, he is 
ready to throw up everything for the love of God, 
John H. Noyes, and his father's Oneida Commu- 
nity. What ails him ? In midwinter Mrs. Scoviile 
has word from her uncle Maynard that " she had 
better come out there and see to Julius, for he was 
going as crazy on the subject of religion as ever 
his fatlier was," Going on, she says she "found he 
had quit his school studies entirely," and was giv- 
ing his whole time to the publications of John H. 
Noyes. Night after night she reasoned with him, 
to persuade him to resume his studies and relin- 
quish those ideas. She told him it would be the 
ruin of him to go to the Community. She says, 
" I could not influence him a particle. At last I 
made up my mind he was crazy, from the way he 
acted and talked." About this time lie bejxan to 
correspond with parties in the Community, and, 
though he remained in Ann Arbor, nominally at 
school, till the close of the term, in June, 1860, he 
entered the Oneida Community. 

In a certain sense here had been what is called 



TWO HARD CASES. 85 

a " change of lieart : " from worldly pursuits he had 
turned to seek the Lord. I have no disposition to 
underrate it as a conversion. Thenceforward the 
religious element, such as it was, became prominent 
in his life ; it is there to-day. The contradictions 
of that life are another matter ; the fact that there 
was a different basis of thought remains. The 
change was marked. Here is his own explana- 
tion of it in 1861. In a letter to Mr. Scoville he 
says, — 

" Previous to my going to Ann Arbor, in the fall 
of 1859, father very much desired me to come to 
the Community, but at that time I was not in a 
condition to comply with his request. After con- 
siderable conversation with him, he finally gave his 
assent to my attending school in Michigan, if I 
would go upon my own resj^onsihility and at my 
own expense. Soon after arriving at Ann Arbor, 
I became quite homesick. I felt miserable and des- 
titute as I had never felt before. I soon found my 
heart turned towards God for comfort and consola- 
tion, and began to read with engerness the ' Circu- 
lar ' and ' Berean,' and other publications of the 
Community, together with the Bible. At this 
point I reckon the commencement of my religious 
experience, — the time when my heart was first 
turned towards God in an earnest and confiding 
manner. I continued to read earnestly the above- 



86 TWO HARD CASES. 

mentioned works during my stay of nine months 
in Michigan. The consequence was that I made 
great improvement in every particuhir. I obtained 
intellectual food for the mind, and spiritual food 
for the soul. I was very mucli blessed in my ex- 
perience there. In January, 18G0, I commenced 
correspondence with members of the Community, 
which resulted in my coming here at the close of 
my school in June. Be assured that I did not 
come here ivithout counting the cost in every 'partic- 
ular. I was attracted here by an irresistible 
power, which I was not at liberty to disobey. I was 
intellectually convinced, and positively knew from 
the feelings of my inmost heart, that this was the 
beffinnins of the kiniidom of God on earth ; and 
with this conviction and feelings, I came last June 
wnth the fixed intention to remain -pernianently, 
and devote my intellectual and physical facul- 
ties to the promotion of the kingdom of God on 
earth." 

We can call this conversion, or we may agree 
with his sister and uncle Maynard, who saw him 
at the time, and labored with liim, that he had gone 
insane on the subject. But, in the interest of the 
whole truth, we should also consider the fatlier's 
opinion, who, if he did not see, was in frequent 
correspondence with him. Some years after, when 
Charles had left Oneida, and was threatening a 



TWO HARD CASES. 87 

suit, and exposure of the vile practices of the Com- 
munity, Luther Guiteau, being appealed to by its 
leaders for aid, and being now fully convinced that 
in Charles he was dealing with a " devil's seed," 
whose sacrilegious hands were stretched out against 
what he believed to be the very ark of the cove- 
nant, — Noyes' kingdom of God on earth, — he 
published a letter in the " New York AVorld," from 
which I have taken the following extract : — 

" After a few months' reading and studying these 
publications [those of the Oneida Community] he 
professed to believe their teachings, and he deter- 
mined to visit and apply for admission into the 
Community, without consultation with his father 
or any of his friends, and, indeed, against the ad- 
vice of his father. In the last letter his father wrote 
him, doubts were expressed as to the j^ropriety 
of the step, and he was advised to wait. Once in 
the Community as a probationer, and held back 
from (what he supposed, though mistakenly) the 
privileges of the Community until he should be- 
come of age, and to give him an opportunity to 
well understand them, as well as to correct some 
evil and destructive habits he had fallen into before 
going there, he finally forced himself upon them 
(just as he is now trying to force himself upon 
other people) ; thinking, no doubt, he would be able 
to realize the real though concealed, object he had 



88 TWO HARD CASES. 

ill view, namely, the free exercise of his unbridled 
lust for women. Of my own knowledi^e, I can say 
he was absolutely kept in abeyance, and restrained 
from outrageous things, by the faithfulness of the 
members of the Community, and patiently borne 
with, in hopes he would ultimately be rescued from 
til at lustful spirit. And now he says, forsooth, that, 
being once under their magnetism, he was induced 
to believe that his only chance of salvation was to 
submit to their rules. The truth is. he never came 
under their magnetism or rules, only by way of re- 
straint, as a tiger is kept from doing damage by 
being put in a cage or in chains." 

This is the demon view of his conversion, vigor- 
ously urged, and, allowing for the circumstances of 
the writing and the peculiarities of the writer, it 
should be received for what it is worth. If the 
above accurately states the facts in the case, it may 
well be doubted if Charles could, at that time, have 
been in his rioht mind. Youno- as he was, he was 
no novice in the ways of the world, and to tlirow 
away his education and his prospects in that man- 
ner and for tliat purpose was unnecessary. If he 
had such a tiger in Jiim as the senior Guiteau fan- 
cied, there were less expensive methods open to him 
of purchasing experience and repentance. If, on 
the other Ivand, he had inherited a mental organiza- 
tion defective and peculiar from tlie start, that could 



TWO HARD CASES. 89 

not hold his passions in check ; if his egotism as a 
boy, second only to that of his manhood, and else 
unparalleled, had controlled his judgment; if a 
consuming restlessness was already giving him no 
peace or stability of purpose, we can understand 
how this new departure for the Oneida Community 
might have been the outgrowth of all of these 
tilings ; that it was the resultant of his lust, of his 
change of heart, of his insanity. Perhaps it was 
as much of a " conversion " as it was possible for 
such a mind to experience ; a religious fervor that 
burned in the Huguenot had kindled into a scorch- 
ing fire in his brain, of which the embers are glow- 
ing to-day. Do you say this view is disproved by 
the hypocrisy of his later years ? I answer that 
the unsound mind is a paradox. You may often 
recognize the insane by the contradiction in their 
lives. I remember a venerable old clergyman, who 
has, I hope, been for years in Paradise, who, in 
his round of tlie ward, on coming upon a group at 
cards, would, w^itli uplifted hands, as if in prayer, 
bieak out into the most fearful oaths at the wn-etches 
who were sinnino; by iudulirino- in the oame. Did 
I call him a hypocrite because he mingled prayers 
and curses? I said only that he was insane; the 
idea of hypocrisy did not come into my mind, for 
I realized that it was only the demon that had en- 
tered into his disordered brain that swore, and that 



90 TWO HARD CASES. 

his soul, long safe from profane defilement, was 
waitino' for Abraham's bosom. But because this 
saint was insane, it would be a mistake to infer 
that the insane are all saints. Tliere is no incom- 
patibility between wickedness and insanity, though 
this fact is often overlooked, and, at this trial which 
we are outlining, having found Guiteau a knave, 
nobody seems to have considered that it was pos- 
sible he might still be a fool. 

His residence in the Oneida Community has left 
but little record that has come into oar hands, 
and so of these six years of the impressible period 
of his life, the very time when we should desire 
to know most about him, we must content our- 
selves with a very fragmentary history. Cover- 
ing that portion of liis life, from June, 1860, to 
November, 18G6, the date of his final departure 
from the Community, we have the criminal's own 
statement, the testimony of three witnesses who 
saw him while there, and a few letters written by 
himself and otliers. We have seen in what fresh 
zeal lie went there, and through what limitations of 
birth and education he had come, at the age of 
eighteen, to that light which, in his testimony, he 
styles " becominoj reliorious," — " that Light which 
ligliteth every man who cometh into the world." 
How had that light shone for him, cloistered from 
the world in that great nursery of shame, whose 



TWO HARD CASES. 91 

spiritual desjDotism was absolute, whose social life 
was slavery, whose gospel was lust? They rued 
the reaping who sowed dragon's teeth, but what 
harvest shall he gather who plants "devil's seed" 
in such a soil ? 

At the jail, before his trial, in conversing with 
me of this Oneida life, he manifested greater ex- 
citement and more intense feelino^ than on any 
other topic. He said " he came out with his life 
blasted," and it was said with all the bitterness with 
which I often hear unrecovered insane men allude 
to their confinement in a hospital. A similar vio- 
lence of manner and language on this subject was 
noticeable during the trial. What did he do, how 
did he act there ? Whether they believed him 
sane or insane, they were evidently puzzled by 
him. Jocelyn, business manager of the Commu- 
nity, whose acquaintance covers most of the time 
he was there, says he was about as egotistic a man 
as he ever knew ; differed from other men in being 
so absorbed in himself and havinor such a hio^h idea 
of himself, with very moderate and perhaps inferior 
abilities, as to think he was a superior being, quali- 
fied to be a leader and a manager generally. He 
believed him in earnest in these convictions about 
himself. Hubbard, a farmer working at the Com- 
munity, but not a member, says he knew him for 
three years, seeing him almost daily, working with 



92 TWO HARD CASES. 

him in the trap shop. " Ordinarily he did his work 
very well, except when he would get mixed up in 
his packing. He would, in packing traps, pack 
those with chains with those witliout chains. He 
was a very nervous, quick-tempered, quick man. 
If anything was said to him that would rile him, he 
would gesticulate wildly, and talk in a mysterious, 
understandinor manner. Had also noticed that he 
would sit for hours in a corner, saying nothing to 
anybody, and you could not get an answer from 
him. At other times he would be cheerful, and 
would talk to the boys on any subject." Mrs. Sco- 
ville, who visited him once at Oneida, some years 
after he entered the Community, says she could see 
him only in the presence of others. She tried to 
converse with him, but all the answer she could get 
was now and then a monosyllable. " He seemed 
to her like a person that had been bewildered, or 
struck on the head, or had partially lost his mind. 
Could not get any satisfaction, or find out whether 
he wanted to stay or go away with us." Such 
dazed, moody condition, sitting apart and silent for 
hours, is a familiar picture to tliose who live among 
the insane ; alternating with periods of excitement, 
it is common in those cases of mental impairment 
which are accompanied by secret vice, and depend 
upon heredity, both of which conditions are found 
in Guiteau. This moody state, thus developed, is 



TWO BARD CASES. 93 

not incompatible, iiaj, is often associated, with a re- 
ligious fervor, which, however, is not piety, though 
sometimes mistaken for it by very good 23eople. 

Of Guitean's religious ideas and spiritual aspira- 
tions, or of his expression of them, we have in 
evidence several long disquisitions, written during 
this period, which are of importance as showing 
at least what he claimed, if not what he believed. 
Some of the ideas expressed are fanatical and 
strange, but it must be remembered that he lived 
in a community full of these fanatical notions, and 
it was no evidence of insanity in them that they 
believed such things ; but, as I have said before in 
these pages, it is not so much what a man believes 
that makes the test of his sanity or insanity as 
how he believes it. The question here is of the 
probable effect of such beliefs on such a mind. 
This most egotistical of men, writing from Oneida, 
February 24, 1861, to Mr. Scoville, says, among 
other thino-s, '' I was attracted here bv an irresist- 
ible power, which I was 7iot at liberty to disobey.'^ 
" I have forsaken everything for Christ, — reputa- 
tion, honor of men, riches, fame, and worldly re- 
nown. All hankerino- after the thino;s of this world 
have ceased, as I trust, forever." " We believe that 
this association is the germ of the kingdom of 
God." " VYe expect without wavering the steady, 
irresistible advance of this association to the con- 



94 TWO HARD CASES. 

quest of the whole world." In a letter to Mrs. 
Scoville, elated August 9, 1861, this occurs : " I will 
say for myself that my eternal marriage to Jesus 
Christ and Ms people in this world, Hades, and the 
resurrection world is preeminently paramount to all 
attraction, of whatsoever kind or nature." Such 
ecstatic beliefs are in keeping with tlie egotistic 
vanity of the man, and not inconsistent with the 
idea of insanity, but they do not prove it. There 
is no doubt that he considered himself qualified to 
be a leader in the Community, and that he pre- 
ferred to do the thinkino^ rather than the workins: 
part of the business. It is clear that he never 
heartily accepted their views on the "labor ques- 
tion," so far as it regarded himself. He never 
seemed to have taken kindly to manual labor any- 
where. 

It is difficult to believe that he got on very 
smoothly in the Community at any time ; what 
with his aversion to labor, his disposition to sulk 
by himself, his offensive conceit, aspiring to be a 
leader, but with no real ability, his quarrels with 
the management, and his incapacity to make friends, 
he mu<t have been an uncomfortable brother to 
live with. "With Iiis known restlessness, the wonder 
is, not that he left the Community at the end of 
five years, but that he remained half that time; 
there is no other period of his life that begins to 



TWO HARD CASES. 95 

coinj3are with it for stability of purpose. This is 
best accounted for on the ground that lie believed 
what he said he did; that he went there to save 
his soul ; and that he then honestly believed, was 
at least " intellectually convinced, that the Oneida 
Community was the beginning of the kingdom of 
God on earth." Why should he not intellectually 
believe it? It had been tausjht him from his in- 
fancy. Further on, in April, 1865, when on the 
eve of starting out to illuminate the world with 
the " Theocrat," as he says, " to give Jesns Christ 
a daily paper," while he speaks of having "run 
through a most crucifying experience" in tiie Com- 
munity, he still writes, " I know in my heart that I 
am one with Christ and Paul and ]\Ir. Noyes for- 
ever and ever ; that no power in the universe can 
sunder us." 

Then, after he had been led by that vision of 
the "Theocrat" into New York city, — a dream 
that seemed sane enough to his dazed brain in the 
cloister, but that could not bear the light of day, — 
and had talked with practical printers und newspa- 
per men, and some wretched worldling had told 
him tliat the very name " Theocrat " was enough 
to damn it from the start, and he had still sense 
enough left to see that that was so, and the vision 
faded, — then, why did he go back ? There is noth- 
ing but religious belief that will explain it. lie had 



96 TIVO HARD CASES. 

settled with Mr. Noyes ; he had the money to sup- 
port himself in New York the same as when he 
went there a year later ; the firm in whose employ 
lie claimed to be had not dissolved ; only the vision 
of the "Theocrat" was withdrawn. Ah! he still 
believed there was no salvation outside the fel- 
lowship of the Community. He writes from Ho- 
boken, under date of July 6, 18G5, asking to be 
taken back, and he begins his letter, " Dear friends, 
though in the world, yet I am not of the world, for 
the friendship of the world is enmity with God." 
He humbles himself, lays aside his boasting, says 
he sees that " the most effective way of preaching 
the gospel is by the exhibition of a (/ood life." He 
recants in regard to his heavenly vision that he 
had a great mission to i^erform ; says he is now 
" satisfied that it was a devilish delusion that tor- 
mented me." And so he goes back, like the prod- 
igal, to a welcome more or less cordial. But the 
spell was broken ; the peace he had hoped to find 
was not there. He comes to hate Noyes and his 
slavery, to disbelieve or to harden his heart against 
his teachings. Then the demon of unrest drives him 
forth again, and in November, 18GG, he leaves the 
Oneida Community forever. 

The leaders of that organization were in a posi- 
tion to know pretty well about tl»is man, and it 
would be interesting to learn whether they consid- 



TWO HARD CASES. 97 

erecl him insane or not at that time. True, they 
were not experts, and their rather trying experi- 
ence with him then, and especially later, would nat- 
urally incline them to the belief that his inspiration 
was a "devilish delusion," but living with him for 
six years, and seeing his actions and his ways, they 
ought to have some idea if he was crazy, or ugly, 
in the American sense of that word, or both. 
Charles S. Jocelyn, one of the business managers 
of the Community, who testified to having known 
Guiteau at Oneida certainly for four and possibly 
five years, described his mental peculiarities, but 
neither the counsel for the prosecution nor the de- 
fense ventured to ask if he thought him insane. It 
would have been interesting to the by-standers, pos- 
sibly to the jury, to have heard from him on that 
subject, but we cannot presume too far on the legal 
fiction of " the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth ;" it really means just so much truth 
as the lawyer may need for his particular side of 
the case. Of course as the defense called him, and 
did not ask the question, the presumption would be 
that his answer would not help their case. That 
presumption was all the prosecution needed, and 
Mr. Davidge, quick to perceive it, said, " We do 
not want to ask anything, — not a word," and 
hurried him from the stand. 

Last autumn a letter from J. H. Noyes to Mr. 
7 



98 TWO HARD CASES. 

Scoville, appeared in the " Niagara Falls Gazette," 
which, though I do not know to be authentic, J 
presume is so; and as the opinion of J. II. Noyes, 
if honestly stated, would be entitled to great weight, 
as he was for six years in a position to know the 
facts, I insert that letter here : — 

JSTiAGAUA Falls, Ont., October 20, 1881. 

G. W. Scoville : 

Dea7' Sii', — I see in the papers that you have 
named me as a witness, by whom you intend to 
prove Guiteau's insanity. 

Perhaps it will save you trouble and expense, if 
I inform you in advance that I do not believe in 
his insanity, and that I recollect no act or symj)tom 
of insanity in his life, while under my observation. 
Probably, I have more reason than any other man, 
to know and detest his wickedness ; but that is 
not insanity, in any legal sense. I think that he 
was born with a special genius for mischief, and 
has had a real inspiration for it all his days ; but 
that is not saying he is insane, unless we also call 
natural genius and inspiration for good things, such 
as inventions, music, etc., insanity. I understand 
insanity to be unsoundness, disease, of the brain ; 
and I do not think that Guiteau has that any moi-e 
than bears and lions have it. I agree with the old 
hymn that such beasts growl and light because 
'•It is their nature to." 



TWO HARD CASES. 99 

"VVitli these views and the memory of my sore 
experience with yonr client, I am afraid I should 
have to testify strongly against your main plea, and 
perhaps should be the means of sending him to the 
gallows, which I should sincerely regret on many 
accounts, and especially because his father was a 
dear friend to me and mine. But I must notify 
you that my regret would be mostly for my per- 
sonal agency in the tragedy. 

Yours respectfully, J. H. Xoyes. 

This letter, published as an open one by J. H. 
Noyes. had the desired effect, and he was not sum- 
moned ; but for the sake of the whole truth, he 
should now be called. And from J. H. Noyes 
findinij it convenient to reside in Canada, in view 
of the sentiment of western New York, and writ- 
ing for the press in the interest of the popular in- 
dignation against Guiteau in 1881, I appeal to J. 
H. Noyes, writing to Luther AV. Guiteau, in 18G8, 
while smarting under the abusive letters of Charles, 
and fresh from his experiences with him in the 
Community, that would naturally lead him to re- 
gard him as wicked rather than crazy, but when 
there was no public sentiment, demanding that he 
should be pronounced sane. I am permitted to in- 
sert the following letter : — 



100 TWO HARD CASES. 

WAT.LIXGFORD, February 8, 18G8. 

Dear Brother Guitkau, — Your letter makes 
all right between iis, and I tbank God with you 
for new love and contidence, where tlie devil would 
have been glad to make a breach. 

I hear nothing more from the threatened suit, 
and my impression, like yours, is that Dean has 
abandoned it. I have reason to believe, however, 
that Charles is doing his best to stir up hostility 
against us in the newspaper world, but with poor 
success. 

It seems to me that the least thing you can do 
at this time is to write him a kind, fatherly letter ; 
settino- before him the follv of his course, and 
opening to him the door of repentance and return. 
I regard him as insane, and I jJi'ayed for him last 
night as sincerely as I ever prayed for my own son, 
that is now in a lunatic asylum. I do not wish 
you to say these things from me ; but if you feel as 
I do about him, you can show him, on the one 
hand, that he can gain notliing by war but disgrace, 
because we are used to exposure, and live in spite 
of it, but the exposure which he will bring on him- 
self, if he persists in making enemies of us, will 
ruin him ; and, on the other hand, that there is 
nothing to hinder his recovering your friendshi^J 
and ours, and getting help to escape from his sins 
and the disgrace of them. He must be leading a 



TWO HARD CASES. 101 

miserable life, trying to get his anonymous circulars 
noticed, haunting newspaper offices and studying 
mischief. He cannot get a living, temporal or 
spiritual, by such things, and he is not likely to 
make friends that will stand by him, even among 
our enemies, for they are all too selfish to help one 
another eflTectually. I conjecture that Dean has 
deserted him. I do not believe that he has found 
or will find any friends that will be half so faithful 
to him as you and I would be glad to be. 

It can do no harm to try the coarse of entreaty 
and mercy ; only don't let your heart go out so far 
as to get wounded if the experiment fails. 

Yours very truly, J. H. Noyes. 

" I do not believe in his insanitv," and " I regard 
him as insane;" you have the two statements, and 
the circumstances under which they were given, as 
well as the reputation of the witness. Which will 
you believe ? 

Other letters have come under my observation, 
written by leaders of that Community, at the time 
of his departure for New York, and later, when he 
was threatening suit and exposure ; also copies of 
his own letters, assailing those leaders, — letters that 
are villainous enough ; but it would swell this paper 
far beyond its proper limits to reproduce them 
here. Nor is it necessary ; they cover very much 



102 TWO HARD CASES, 

the same ground as the one of J. H. Noyes, already 
given. It is clear that the Oneida people were 
somewhat afraid of his exposures, and thankful to 
be rid of him. They agree that he was wicked and 
ugly, and that something was the matter with his 
mind ; that he w^as insane, or, at least, partially so : 
but, so far as I know, none of these parties huve 
made haste to deny in print what they believed 
then, and letters designed only for private perusal 
should not be made public unless the vindication of 
the truth renders such publicity necessary. 

So, then, going to reside in New York city, he 
leaves the Oneida Community, with the lessons of 
its social life superadded to his former experience. 
As he had no virtue to boast of before, we shall not 
look to find him growing better as the years go on ; 
his egotism has become gigantic, his insane inspira- 
tion does not lift him out of evil courses, and the 
mantle of a partial derangement but barely covers 
the excesses of his life. 

If, as seems most probable, in view of all the facts 
attainable, Guiteau's religious experiences at Ann 
Arbor and Oneida were an outgrowth of insanity, 
and were, as Dr. Rice has happily styled them in 
his testimony, the manifestations of a " pseudo-re- 
ligious feeling," and not the inward development 
of a healthy, vital piety, then much in his life that 
is else a riddle becomes plain. Admitting an ele- 



TWO HARD CASES. 103 

ment of insaiiif}' there, sometimes dormant, but al- 
ways present, we can understand how one day there 
might be manifestations of most extravagant relisj- 
ious feeling, and the next developments of a spirit 
almost Satanic ; nay, that both might happen in the 
same day. And to explain tliis it would not be nec- 
essary to evoke '' moral insanity " from the limbo 
to which tlie lawyers have properly relegated it; 
nor would it be wise, because it claims " inspira- , 
tion," to call that " religious mania" which is sim- | 
ply mental unsoundness, whose manifestation for 
the time happens to be a pious exhortation. 

Most of the mistakes and misunderstandings in 
the discussions of insanity result from our artilicial 
nomenclature of mental diseases. If a man is in- 
sane, saying all manner of words of Greek deriva- / 
tion over him does notexwcise the demon, nor does 
this assist either the scientific man or the common 
people to a better understanding of his disorder. 
They err who make haste to classify everything. 
Mania, melancholia, dementia, — they are but the ^ 
convenient pigeon-holes in which you file away | 
your cases of one and the same disease ; and after 
you have laid them aside, sometimes when you go 
to look for them you find they have changed places. 
It is enough to have satisfactorily established the 
unsoundness of a mind without being curious to 
label it. 



104 TWO HARD CASES. 

Guiteau had taken eight hundred dollars into the 
Community when he went there, and such portion 
of this as had not already been expended on the 
Theocratic project he received soon after his final 
separation from them. He retired to New York 
city, and seems to have remained in an aimless idle- 
ness while his money lasted ; at least I cannot as- 
certain that lie did anything. He joined Beecher's 
church and the Young Men's Christian Association, 
and then appears to have lounged about their rooms 
and the libraries. In his testimony he says that 
he " used to wander up and down the streets of 
New York, and try to shake off the Community in- 
fluence." " I had all I could possibly do to prevent 
myself from going back, because I had the idea in 
my mind that I would lose my eternal salvation. 
The idea that I was to be' etei'nally damned haunted 
me and haunted me." 

In the spring his father visited liim. About this 
time he went out to Harlem to board. May 20, 
1867, he writes his sister that he thinks, in the 
absence of anything better, he shall study law in 
the summer, and adds, in his characteristic style, 
" I have studied theology considerably, and hope 
I have my religious pi'inciples established, so that 
I may now study law with profit, whether I ever 
practice it or not." He also says he has decided 
not to go "West this summer, but thinks of remain- 



TWO BARD CASES. 105 

ing where he is for the present. But he is vacillat- 
ing as ever. This is the latter part of May, and 
in Jnly he goes up to New Haven, and in August 
he arrives at Mr. Scoville's office, in Chicago, and 
is considering the propriety of reading law there. 
October 11, being, as he says, within thirty dollars 
of the end of his money, he writes his father that 
he is doing well in his legal studies (with Mr. 
Scoville), and hopes to be admitted by the first of 
the next May. Just one month later, November 
11, the law' seems to have been laid aside, and he 
writes his father that he is thinkinsr of returnino- to 
New^ York, and says, " I never contemplated set- 
tling down as a practicing lawyer. My object was 
simply to become acquainted with the fundamental 
principles of the science." Three days later he 
writes, "I am all ready to go East, minus a hundred 
dollars," and adds, " I am quite certain I sliall get 
a situation on the ' Independent.' " This is the old 
restlessness and the former vision of "a work to 
do " in newspaper editing, but somewhat modified. 
Now it is only a place on the editorial staff of the 
" New York Independent ; " then it was a call to 
" give Jesus Christ a daily paper," precisely as, some 
years later, the Austrian mission is exchanged for 
the Paris consulate. Of course nothing came of 
the " Independent " editorship, but, nevertheless, 
the new year, 1868, finds him back in New York, 



lOG TWO HARD CASES. 

and being straitened for money (see letter to Mr. 
Scoville January 25, 1868) he endeavors, by threat- 
ening letters and a sensation appeal to the public, 
which he prints and sends to the leading papers of 
the city, to frighten the heads of the Oneida Com- 
munity into paying him money, and so prevent his 
suit and the exposure of their iniquities, which he 
had been holding over them for some time. To 
this J. II. Noyes refers in his letter of February, 
1868, to Lutlier W. Guiteau. 

He seems for a time to have followed up his as- 
sault with all the venom of his nature. Do we need 
any better evidence of the depravity of the man ? 
If we do, be sure we shall find it in the slums of 
his New York residence, some years later, with its 
doubtful ci iminal practice and his wretched married 
life, parading tlie open adultery of its divorce ; but 
more of this anon. The scheme to extort money, 
by threats, from the Community fails, and in the 
spring, 1868, we find tlie man, who had written his 
father only the last November that his object in 
reading law with Mr. Scoville was " simply to be- 
come acquainted with the fundamental principles 
of the science," back in Chicago, hard at the " fun- 
damental principles" again, in the law office of 
General Reynolds. Why with General Reynolds 
instead of Mr. Scoville? Probably some trouble 
with the latter is the cause, as his father, in a letter 



TWO HARD CASES. 107 

written early in 1873, speaks of ''his abominable 
and deceitful dealings with George Scofield." Gen- 
eral Reynolds, who seems to have noticed him as 
a student, says "his reading was generally that of 
fundamental or elementary law." Somehow he 
was admitted to the Chicago Bar in August, 1868. 
Authorities, while differing as to the exact facts, 
aorree that the examination for admission was not 
exhaustive in his case ; Guiteau puts it as high as 
three or four questions that were asked him, only 
one of which he failed to answer. It is in evidence 
that he was elated by his success, and told his sister 
that "now he would have plenty of money, and that 
they need not worry any more about him." 

Leaving General Reynolds, he opened an office 
for the practice of law in Chicago. What that prac- 
tice amounted to is not so clear. It appears to have 
been a period of comparative quiescence with him, 
and in July, 1869, he finds time to many, rather 
suddenly according to his account. Judge Porter, 
in his cross-examination of Guiteau, made it evi- 
dent that, whatever office or legal work he may 
have done during the three years that he remained 
in Chicago, he had very few, if any, cases in court. 
If he ever had any, his mind at the time of the 
trial was, to use a favorite expression of his, " a 
perfect blank on that subject." Charles H. Reed 
alone seems to have retained any recollection of 



108 TWO HARD CASES. 

liim as an advocate in court. lie first remembers 
him wlien he (Reed) was state district attorney, 
and Guiteau appeared as counsel in a criminal 
case, an affair of petit larceny, so plain that he 
thought it required no argument, and wished the 
court to limit Guiteau in his time; but Guiteau in- 
sisted on his right to speak, and went on for per- 
haps three quarters of an hour with " a rambling 
speech, in which he talked about theology, the Di- 
vinity, the rights of man," etc., etc. Guiteau denied 
all this, but it was observable throughout the trial 
that he was sensitive and quick to resent every 
point in the testimony that indicated that he was 
anj-thing but a smart man, saying " he preferred 
to be hung as a man rather than be acquitted as a 
fool." It is not difficult to believe that he made 
such a defense of his client, and we can well under- 
stand how, on his cross-examination, he was unable 
to recall with anv desfree of certainty a sinsjle case 
that he had carried through to a successful issue, 
and that, whatever undismissed cases he may have 
had on the docket, they were all, as Judge Porter 
sententiously suggested in his examination, finally 
"merged in the Chicago fire." lie returns to New 
York city some time before that fire, and removes 
his wife there shortly after that event. 

From the autumn of 1870 to January, 1875, 
he was in New York, and, with a. brief episode 



TWO HARD CASES. 109 

of politics in the Greeley campaign in 1872. he 
was nominally in the law business there. In the 
ahoundinoj shadows of his miserable life I know 
of no period of equal blackness with this. Even 
tlie pseudo-religious element in his character almost 
entirely disappears; his church membership is used 
only as ''a cloak to serve the devil in." He joins 
the church (Baptist) of the Rev. Dr. McArthur, bor- 
rows money, which he omits to return, by appeal- 
ing to the sympathies of the good doctor. He is 
divorced for adultery by his own procurement, and 
dismissed from the church on charges of gross im- 
morality. His life at this time pleads guilty to all 
the sins of the Decalogue except profanity, " high- 
toned " gentleman that he is, who neither smokes, 
drinks, nor swears. He cheats ever^^body in his 
board bills, in his legal transactions, in his office 
rent; he even "jews" the Chatham Street He- 
brew in a watch trade. He is shut up in the 
Tombs for a month for one of the least of his 
offenses. No one of his victims at this time, in- 
cludino- his wife, seems to have thought him in- 
sane, but a thoroughly unprincipled, bad man. 
Those who believed in a personal devil were clear 
that he had entered into him, and questioning, as 
of old, might have elicited the answer, " My name 
is legion, for we are manv." 

If it is depravity alone that we are looking for 



110 TWO HARD CASES. 

in Guiteaii, we can close our research here, for he 
certaiiilv has it in a confluent form. I oro as far as 
any one in insisting upon the wickedness of this 
man, wliich seems to me to be abundantly proved. 
We want the facts, wliatever they establish, and 
for the proper psychological study of this case we 
cannot afford to be put off with a portion of the 
truth, or anything less than all tliat can be known. 
Hence I have felt that they err, at least as psy- 
chists, if not as jurists, who, having demonstrated 
the depravity, there close their case. T grant you, 
if wickedness be a talisman against insanity, we 
should have no need to proceed farther. But does 
not their daily experience teach those whose lives 
are passed among the insane that sin and disease 
go hand in hand, and that inoculation with the 
one is no protection against the other ? No, I do 
not confound depravity with insanity, though some- 
times their nnion is like that of the Siamese twins : 
you cannot separate them in the life. Depravity 
alone falls very far short of a satisfactory explana- 
tion of this mental phenomenon of the nineteenth 
century. We need to weigh, collectively, Guiteau's 
sins, " which are many ; " his keenness of appreci- 
ation on the instant of the single point before him, 
which is something wonderful, conjoined with a 
child-like credulity, which is even more so ; his per- 
fectly absurd expectations, built upon the veriest 



TU'O HARD CASES. HI 

" stuff that dreams are made of ; " his colossal ego- 
tism, which envelops him like an atmosphere ; his 
utter inability to comprehend the situation in which 
his crime has placed him ; together with that blas- 
phemous faith, which survives all failure, — then 
say what manner of a man he is. 

This New York epoch of Guiteau's life is not, 
perhaps, more remarkable for its sharj) practice in 
money-getting and evading payment than other 
portions of his career, but it has less of anything 
else to characterize it. He appears to have shown 
less mental disturbance, if not more iniquity, than 
in subsequent years. It is noticeable that no 
witness appeared at the trial who, having known 
him only during this New York residence, had re- 
marked anything insane about him. Regular oc- 
cupatian, even though it was scoundrelism, seemed 
to have had a certain controlling influence on his / iT 
mind. The defense called no witness to testify in 
regard to him during this time, and the testimony 
of those produced by the government was unan- 
imous that they saw nothing to indicate that he 
was in any way a man of unsound mind. It is 
true that Herbert J. Ketcham added to the state- 
ment that he appeared to him as " capable of dis- 
cussion in the same manner as any other person of 
his mental size." " That he impressed him as a 
man who did not have a fair deo-ree of sense." It 



112 TWO HARD CASES. 

is certain that much of the testimony, including 
that of Mr. Ketcham himself, showed the intellect- 
ual keenness that characterized many of his fraud- 
ulent transactions. For example, in the case of 
the mortgage deed, testified to by Edwards, which 
he tried to persuade Edwards to take, but failing 
of this took it himself, yet at the same time re- 
quired a bond to secure himself against the judg- 
ment on the foreclosure of the mortgage ; also, the 
oroide watch transaction, where he adroitly with- 
drew his business card, after it had served his pur- 
pose on the trade, before the pawnbroker had se- 
cured his address ; also Stephen English testified 
that he seemed to him "a man of remarkable keen- 
ness of intellect, for he completel}'' outwitted him." 
It is clear that Ketcham meant an absence of 
something other than intellectual sense; he is keen 
enough, but he lacks common sense. 

Decidedly the sensation of the court-room during 
the trial was in reference to this period. It was 
the testimony of Shaw that in 1872 Guiteau told 
him that if he could not get notoriety for good, he 
would for evil : he would shoot some of our public 
men ; " he would imitate Wilkes Booth." This 
statement came at the close of the afternoon of a 
long day of solid testimony in rebuttal for tlie gov- 
ernment, all bearing down with terrible weight 
upon the prisoner, detailing the dark and crooked 



TWO HARD CASES. 113 

ways of his New York life, and affirming his per- 
fect sanity at that time, so that the effect of this 
final shot was ahiiost stunning. 

Guiteau saw the bearing of it in an instant, and 
became very much excited, abusing the witness in 
loud and angry vituperation. The impression pro- 
duced at the moment was that, unless the truthful- 
ness of this witness could be impeached, it was the 
ending of the case, beyond putting the medical ex- 
perts on the stand to establish his sanity on the 
second day of July. The defense realized its effect, 
and did the best they could. They showed in the 
cross-examination of Shaw that he had but a very 
indefinite recollection of the time or circumstances 
under which this remarkable statement was made, 
beyond the fact that it was in his office ; he also 
stated that he did not think any one else was pres- 
ent, and that he did not, at the time, consider it 
of sufficient importance to mention it to any one, 
for he " did not think he (Guiteau) would do such a 
thing." What was more to the point, they proved 
— but it was not until a later day — that the wit- 
ness had once been indicted and tried for perjury, 
though acquitted. It was shown that the false 
statement had been made under a mistake, but it 
certainly proved a carelessness in regard to facts 
before making the statement. 

The government then called one Edwards, a 
8 



114 TWO HARD CASES. 

dei'k ill law offices, who swore that he was present 
and heard Guiteau's statement. Edwards was a 
funny witness, and though he made it probable 
that Shaw had honestly related the conversation as 
he remembered it, the solemnity of the statement 
wore off, under Edwards's way of putting it. 

Shaw had hesitated a little, and the language 
was rather drawn out of hhn by the district attor- 
ney, the reluctant manner making it all the more 
impressive, as though it had been a conversation 
that had so shocked him at the time that he had 
hardly dared to repeat it up to this day. Edwards, 
who probably gives a correct version of their talk, 
says, " I did not pay much attention to the first 
part of it, until they commenced to speak about 
Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Shaw and the prisoner 
were talking. The prisoner said to Mr. Shaw, 
talking of Abraham Lincoln, 'Well, about Booth?' 
lie said, ' Booth's name will be notorious as long 
as Abraham Lincoln.' Mr. Shaw said to him, 
' Yes, it will be notorious, but in what way ? Lin- 
coln a statesman, and Booth an assassin.' AVcll, 
they went on talking, and the prisoner said to Mr. 
Shaw ' that he would be notorious too.' Mr. 
Shaw said to him, ' If you are notorious that way 
you will be hung ;' and said he, ' Well, I don't know 
about that.' " In the afternoon, Edwards said to 
Shaw, " Such talk as that did n't sound well." 



TWO HARD CASES. 115 

" Anybody hearing that would think we were pretty 
bloodthirsty." To this Shaw made answer that " no- 
body would pay any attention to what he said." 
In answer to the question why, Edwards testi- 
fied, " Oh, we used to hear very funny conversa- 
tions from him at times." Edwards went on to 
explain himself, after his peculiar fashion, at some 
length, and showed that Guiteau had an egotistic 
way of telling great things about himself ; and then, 
to Mr. Reed's question, " if the conversation in re- 
gard to Lincoln and Booth was of such a character, 
and the statement was made in such a manner by 
liim, that he did not regard it as amounting to any- 
thing ? " he replied, " I did not, sir ; " and after more 
answers of the same tenor he volunteered the state- 
ment, " The last thing I should have thought he 
would do. I had an idea he was too careful of 
himself to get himself into any danger or trouble." 
Pj-obably this is the truth of the whole matter ; it 
was a part of his idle talk and braggadocio, and 
was forgotten by those who heard it until the as- 
sassination recalled it. There is no likelihood that 
at that time he contemplated doing anything ot" 
the kind ; if he had, how improbable that he would 
have announced it in that way ! And, moreover, 
as he, interrupting, pertinently said, " Do you sup- 
")Ose, gentlemen of the jury and court, that if I 
wanted to murder some great man, as they pretend 



116 TWO HARD CASES. 

I did, I ^YOuld wait for eight or nine years to do 
it ? " The only importance attaching to the con- 
versation is that it shows that at that time his 
mind was capable of calmly entertaining and dis- 
cussing the idea that notoriety, even at the cost of 
a terrible crime, was better than oblivion. 

Of the episode of the Greeley political campaign, 
in ] 872, we know very little. So far as the testi- 
mony discloses, it bears considerable resemblance 
to his conduct in the last presidential canvass, only, 
if we accept IMrs. Dunmire's testimony on tliat 
point, he was able then to make speeches, and work 
hard for Horace Greeley, which is more than he 
succeeded in doing, in 1880, for Garfield. It is 
noticeable, also, that at that time he had his eye on 
a foreign mission : Chili, as two witnesses for the 
government testified ; Switzerland, as he modestly 
allows. Why the government took pains to prove 
this is not so clear ; probably, because this occurred 
at a time, or about the time, when no witness was 
found to swear to his insanity, and, if his ideas of 
his merits were so extravagant then, he was no more 
insane when he made similar ridiculous claims and 
pretensions in 1881. This belongs to the boomer- 
ang style of ai'gumcnt. The presumption of per- 
fect sanity would be wonderfully strengthened by 
eliminating, if it were possible, both the Chilian 
and the Austrian mission absurdity. This is one 



TWO HARD CASES. 117 

of the cases vyliere two negatives of common sense 
are not equal to an affirmative. 

His New York life in 1874 grew up-hill work, 
or rather it was continually going down-hill, until, 
appropriatel}'- enough, it landed him in The Tombs. 
Here Mr. Scoville came to his rescue, and returned 
Avith him to Chicago, where we find him back again 
in a law office in February, 1875 ; first renting 
a desk with George W. Plummer, later with Gen- 
eral Reynolds. He seems to have been sobered 
by his Tombs' experience, and to have remained 
quietly at his law until the autumn of the same 
year, when another vision of "a work to do" in 
newspaper editing, a grand scheme of buying the 
Chicago " Inter-Ocean," telegraphing the bulk of the 
'' Herald " from New York every morning, and re- 
producing it in Chicago, " controlled his will " and 
disturbed his law-practice. He examined buildings 
with the view of renting them for his publishing 
rooms ; inquired the cost of presses, the expense of 
telegraph, etc. It is true, he had no money, noth- 
ing but his magnificent brains, to put into the en- 
terprise ; but he believed he would get the money 
easy enough, men had such confidence in him. The 
success of the scheme was so self-evident, he had 
only to ask John H. Adams, and promise to make 
him Governor of Illinois, to obtain $50,000 from 
him ; somebody else would give $25,000 ; and he 



118 TWO HARD CASES. 

says as a matter of fact Charley Reed did put in 
%'2d. Pluramer, according to his own testimony, 
thought this ne\Yspaper project " a first class busi- 
ness scheme ; " it does not appear that he put any 
money into it. Phelps, who was connected with 
the " Inter-Ocean," and testified that one part of liis 
scheme as unfokled to him (Phelps) was to make 
him editor-in-chief, says, " There was nothing very 
insane about the idea." He thinks that Guiteau, 
in his efforts to purchase and turn over the " Inter- 
Ocean " displayed " extraordinary shrewdness and 
judgment, of the Colonel Sellers type, — milHons 
in it." 

General Reynolds, in whose office Guiteau held 
a desk at the time, seems to have had many conver- 
sations with liim on the subject, studied the mat- 
ter, and made some suggestions in the way of ad- 
vice about it. His testimony is that " there was 
only one drawback to it, and that was the money 
that was necessary ; " that Guiteau " showed al- 
most prophecy in his idea of what the paper could 
be made." According to the statement of General 
Reynolds, the " Inter-Ocean" newspaper has since 
dm^eloped in exact accordance with Guiteau's idea. 
But from the fact that General Reynolds did not 
open his pocket-book, did not give him any letters 
of introduction, and let this opportunity for invest- 
ment go by, it is possible that after all he saw a 



TWO HARD CASES. 119 

little absui'dity in the idea of this briefless, penni- 
less lawyer, " late of New York," taking up with- 
out previous preparation an untried business, and 
as manager and diiector of this gigantic scheme of 
newspaper enterpi-ise intermarrying the New York 
and Chicago morning papers, and from the match 
makino- John H. Adams Governor of Illinois. 
And as he buttoned his pocket over his wallet, it 
is not unlikely he thought of Guiteau as Dickens's 
David Coiiperfield did of his housekeeper, Mrs. 
Crupp : when he was tempted, the evening after 
his dissipation, to throw himself sobbing on her 
bosom, he " doubted, even at that pass, if Mrs. 
Crupp were quite the woman to confide in." 

Hon. Charles B. Farwell's testimony is that the 
first time he ever saw Guiteau was when he called 
at his office, some six or seven years ago in Chi- 
cago. " He said his time was very much engaged," 
and handed me a roll of pa[)ers, saying, ' These 
are editorials for a newspaper which I propose to 
establish here. I want you to lend me $200,000 
for the purpose of starting it, and I will make 
you President of the United States.' " Feasible 
as this scheme was, strangely enough, Farwell did 
not adopt it. For $50,000 John H. Adams was 
to be made Governor of Illinois, and for $200,000 
Charles B. Farwell President of the United 
States. And this was Mr. Farwell's first inter- 



120 TWO BAUD CASES. 

view with this modern Warwick. Tliis is "judg- 
ment of the Sellers type, with millions in it," and 
something else, that Hon. Charles B. Farwell calls 
insanity. 

Luther W. Guiteau, writing under date of Octo- 
ber 15, 1875, from Freeport, Illinois, says, "By 
the way, Charles has been here for several days 
past ; came a week ago yesterday, and remained 
until Thursday morning, when he took the cars for 
Chicago. He came out here, as it appears from 
his story, thinking that through and with my aid 
he could get Mr. Adams to loan him $25,000, to 
help buy up the *' Inter-Ocean " newspaper; ex- 
pecting, as he says, to get the same amount of 
Charles B. Farwell, also the ssume amount of 
a friend who lives in New York, and the same 
amount of Potter Palmer, making $100,000. You 
can judge whether he is sane or insane. He 
went away very much disgusted with me because 
I would not discount his note at the bank for 
$200. To my mind, he is a fit subject for a 
lunatic asylum, and if I had the means to keep 
him would send him to one, for a time at least." 

It is the way a })erson conceives of, together 
with the manner in which he j^resents, his idea that 
stamps its character as the project of an unsound 
mind ; the man, and not the idea, goes insane. Years 
since an insane man told me that by means of elec- 



TWO HARD CASES. 121 

ti'icity they were projecting voices from a distance 
into his room : can I therefore say, with Phelps, 
that " there was notliing very insane abDut the 
idea " ? Shall I go fartlier, and say, with General 
Reynolds, that he " showed almost prophecy " in 
his statement, because now, years later, BelJ, with 
his telephone, has made that insane idea a great 
financial success ? 

As Guiteau could get neither money nor credit, 
the project of the "Inter-Ocean " jxirchase necessa- 
rily came to a stand-still, and shortly faded out. He 
had left General Reynolds's office in November, 
1875, and, beyond his own testimony that he tried 
to pick up his law business, there is no evidence 
that he did anything in law, or anything else, after 
the newspaper enterprise failed. At any rate, in 
June, 1876, he drifted out to Mr. Scoville's jjlace 
at Beaver Lake, Wisconsin. 

Mrs. Scoville said he was different from wdiat 
she had ever seen him before, when he came to 
their home in Wisconsin, — in 1875, she said, evi- 
dently meaning 1876. She did not think she 
would have known him if she had met him on the 
street. " The whole appearance of the man had 
changed : " not a change of dress, but a cliange 
in his face and countenance, including, as it 
seemed to her, the shape of his liead. His man- 
ner had changed ; she described it as an exalted, 



12 '2 T]VO BAUD CASES. 

a hifalutiu state. She had not seen hhii for some 
years. 

Olds, the hired man at Mr. Scoville's, who had 
never seen Guiteau before, testified that the first 
time he ever saw him he said that he appeared 
like a crazy man, — an opinion which he did not 
change on further acquaintance. This for what it 
is worth ; it has a certain value as giving the out- 
ward appearance of the man at this time. 

Plere he spent two summer months in an aimless 
kind of existence, moody and irritable by turns, — 
a very natural condition for such a mind, between 
the miscarriage of one wild project and the incep- 
tion of another. His life has been now drifting, 
now rushing madly, by turns, through all these 
years. The Lime here w^as filled up with reading the 
New Testament, doing chores about the place, and 
light work in the garden, as compensation for his 
board. He testifies that he " had ev'angelistic aspi- 
rations ; thought he might possibly go to Europe, 
as Moody did, and have the same success." Ac- 
cording to the testimony of Olds, liis labor was not 
profitable. Guiteau says, " he was not a horticult- 
urist, an agriculturist, or a farmer," and Olds's ac- 
count of his soaping hickories for fruit trees, weed- 
ing garden crops, etc., confirms the truth of that 
statement. It was during this period that he sud- 
denly and apparently without provocation, beyond 



TWO HARD CASES. 123 

an expostulation from liis sister in regard to his 
work, raised the axe with which he was cuttiiiii 
wood against her ; and she, being ahirmed about 
his mental condition, called in Dr. Rice, with a 
view of having him confined in a lunatic hospital, 
if found insane. His father's letter of October 
31, 1875, shows that this was no new idea in the 
family. 

Dr. Rice seems to have taken a common-sense 
view of the case. He examined the man, and 
ascertained all that he could from the relatives 
as to his antecedents and the family history. He 
found him insane, in his opinion dangerous, per- 
haps incurable, and advised his seclusion. Here 
was a physician, in the continuous practice of his 
])rofession for twenty-six years, who testified that 
frequently, as often as several times a year, dur- 
inof that time he had occasion to examine nersons 
with reference to their commitment to hospitals for 
the insane. He was called for the express purpose 
of deciding upon the sanity of Charles J. Guiteau 
in 1876, when no question of crime had been raised, 
and he found him insane. Among his reasons for 
this conclusion, he mentions, as coming under his 
own observation, " an exaltation of his emotional 
nature, attended with explosions of emotional feel- 
ing, from centric causes ; that is, he could discover 
no reason for it. During these periods of excite- 



124 TWO HARD CASES. 

merit, he tliouglit he coukl detect more or less iuco- 
herency of thought." 

Of these exi^losions the doctor gives one illustra- 
tion of which he was an eye-witness. During an 
ordinary evening conversation, in which nothing of 
religion had been introduced, he rose suddenly, and, 
having appealed to those wdio were near him to 
come to the Lord, became incoherent ; " You 
could n't tell what he was talking about." In ad- 
dition to an excessive egotism, the doctor says he 
was the subject of an intense pseudo-religious feel- 
ing. He thought, moreover, there was some weak- 
ening of the judgment, and, to that extent, impair- 
ment of the natural faculties, but not very much 
disturbance of the intellectual or i)erceptional force, 
as he was unable to discover illusion, hallucination, 
or delusion. He sums up, as the grounds of his 
decision : " First, there was a strong hereditary 
predisposition ; second, there was more or less con- 
genital moral defect, or moral imbecility. Then, 
engrafted upon this bad state of things, about the 
age of puberty came this exaltation of his emo- 
tional nature, which had affected mostl}^ the 
emotions of pride and vanity.'' To the lawyer 
this savors of " moral insanity," which is a stench 
in his nostrils. To the observant physician, called 
upon to treat the multiform disorders of mind, who 
knows by experience how often the first manifesta- 



TWO HARD CASES. 125 

tions of insanity are in disordered action and ex- 
plosive emotion, rather than in intellectual delusion, 
this pseudo-religious feeling, this "centric" excite- 
ment of the emotions, are familial' pictures from his 
every-day life among the insane. Guiteau, getting 
an inkling of the hospital project, left the house. 
As usual, what was everybody's business was no- 
body's, and no further steps were taken for his 
confinement. 

Again the scene shifts to Chicago, and the old 
business of the law. Not much law ; possibly 
some collections. We have to rely on his own 
testimon}'^ for the autumn of 1876. It is certain 
that he attended more or less at the Moody and 
Sankey meetings, held in Chicago during the latter 
months of 1876. He talks of being an usher and 
helping around ; what his services would amount 
to we can estimate approximately. He claims that 
in November a remark made in one of these meet- 
ings by the Rev. Dr. Kittredge, of Chicago, gave 
him the first suggestion of his inspiration to write 
the lecture on the second coming of Christ ; and 
that in December, 1876, with much labor and hard 
diaiiino^ in theolo2:ical lore at the Chicao^o Public 
Library, he produced this lecture, which is more 
or less a paraphrase of the same topic in the " Be- 
rean " of John H. Noyes. This tender fledgeling he 
undertook to bring before the public for the first 



126 TWO HARD CASES. 

time in Janiiaiy, 1877, in a Methodist cliiircli at 
Chicago. He says he advertised it freely, but the 
night was a cold one. Tlie house would hold fifteen 
hundred people, there were twenty-five or thirty 
jjresent ; also, a wicked " Tribune " reporter, who 
gave him a free advertisement in his paper, the 
next morning, that hurt his feelings very much, 
tliough, if we can credit his account of his inter- 
view with the managing editor, it made others smile. 
The editor said, " It was the Jaugliing- stock of 
tlie whole city." For the moment he felt that tiie 
world was not ripe for liis borrowed evangel ; he 
laid it on the shelf, and took up Blackstone again. 
But the leaven of theology had entered into his 
brain anew ; there was no peace, no rest, and in the 
spring of 1877 he started out on that remarkable 
lecture tour. Plummer, who expressed a doubt if 
Guiteau knew much about Chi'ist's first coming, 
and evidently saw very little connection between 
the law and either coming, first or second, says he 
was surprised at the announcement of Guiteau's in- 
tention to lecture on such a theme, and advised 
him to stick to the law. Guiteau replied " the law 
business was very dull, and he thought he could do 
better in the theology business just then." 

Those who believe in the perfect sanity of Gui- 
teau see in this lecture tour only a money-making 
scheme. Well, if it was, it was a pretty crazy one, 



TWO HARD CASES. 127 

from a caj)italist's stand-point. I have no doubt 
this idea existed to some extent in his mind, and, 
wlien bantered by Plummer, this was the best 
excuse he could offer for a project that he was 
keen enough to see had impressed Plummer as 
nonsensical. But he placed this same lecture, in 
pamphlet form, in the hands of another lawyer, 
Charles H. Reed, and the statement to him was, 
" The pamphlet will do you and everybody else 
good, because I have been inspired l)y the Lord to 
write it, and it is as much inspired as the New Tes- 
tament." It does not appear that Reed was a 
better Christian than Plummer, but he had not 
chaffed Guiteau about his mission, and so Guiteau 
disclosed to him the thought that was uppermost in 
his mind, not the after-thought. These mixed mo- 
tives entered into his Theocrat scheme. It was "' a 
splendid chance for somebody to do a big thing for 
God, for humanity, and for himself." 

His egotism never allows him to forget himself, 
and in his most ecstatic moments he has probably 
never risen above a pseudo-religious emotion. At 
his worst, the depi'avity of his nature is demoniacal ; 
at his best, he is but an insane apostle. In vary- 
ing degree such conflicting elements seem to be 
always present in his life, and it is a close study 
between the contradictions of hypocrisy and of dis- 
ease in his career. 



128 TWO HARD CASES. 

If we accei:)t his own statement, for a time early 
in 1877 he attempted to carry the law office and 
the lecture field together. In May he went to 
Evanstown, and proclaimed his new gospel before 
a somewhat restless, but res2:)ectable-sized audience. 
Still nominally at the law, he lectured at Racine 
in August, giving the wonderful revelation of the 
second coming in a. d. 70. His audience was not 
large, but the Presbyterian clergyman, who came 
with his deacons to hear him, seems to have treated 
him with the liberality of a Christian gentleman ; 
and this man, while he gave Guiteau ''no scrip," 
did manage to confirm the idea that he had great 
truths for the world. This was all he wanted ; 
henceforward for nearly two years there was no 
more wavering between law and theology ; a voice 
had called him that " he did not feel at liberty to 
disobey." The " Tribune " reporter had almost 
quenched the divine spark at the outset; but after 
smouldering for months it kindled afresh, and 
this encouragement from the sympathetic minister 
fanned it into a consuming fire. 

His record is a strange one from the autumn of 
1877 to the spring of 1879, when he abandons tlie 
lecture field, but not theology. Here are nearly 
two years of lectures, or rather attempts to lecture. 
What place throughout the whole North and West 
that did not hear of him, or have the opportunity 



TWO HARD CASES. 129 

to hear him ? Certainly the list of cities and 
towns embraced in his route is too lono: to admit of 
enumeration here. Tliere are three ways in which 
this wild pilgrimage is susceptible of jDartial ex- 
planation, at least, according to the stand-point from 
which it is viewed : His own is that of apostolic 
preaching, and his egotism audaciously parallels it 
with the mission of St. Paul, — " In journeyings 
often, in peril of waters, in prison, in weariness 
and painfulness, in cold and nakedness," — all these 
he gives us in his narrative ; but it is hardly to be 
supposed that any other human being than him- 
self will claim that he is divinely inspired, certainly 
no sane one. " The literary tramp," "' the cham- 
pion dead-beat," — this is the popular view of the 
man and his journey. His evasion of board-bills on 
the route and his free rides on railroads give support 
to this theory. The objection to this view is that 
his labor was absolutely without return. It could 
not have taken two years to convince a sane man 
that there were easier ways of getting, or failing 
to get, a living than this. Then there is the third" 
theory, that, being insane, he went because he could 
not help going. For myself, when I trace that mad 
hurrying from city to city, it seems like a picture 
of one, the Jew of mediaeval story, driven along 
under a curse ; or the Scripture lesson of the un- 
clean spirit, whose language may have suggested to 





130 TWO HARD CASES. 

the old monks that legend of the wandering, un- 
dying one, — " walking through dry places, seeking 
rest and finding none." Tiie demon of unrest seemed 
now to have entered into this man to dwell there. 
How many such tourists we find, from Pratt, the 
Great American Traveler, down, many of whom 
have taken permanent lodgings in insane asylums. 

Guiteau, once on his heat, seems to have had no 
power to pause for any length of time, until the 
impelling force was exhausted ; as he expresses it, 
" until he had worked the inspiration out of him." 
To all outward appearances the whole mission is a 
total failure ; the second coming remains as much 
in the clouds as ever. He has audiences, and his 
collections amount to nothing ; again, he advertises, 
but gets no audience. When they do come, if 
good-natured they only laugh at him, if disgusted 
they hoot him. Sometimes he leaves his audience 
with his lecture unfinished; more often it is his au- 
dience that leaves him. No matter, he travels on. 
He walks if he must, he rides if he can. He is 
put off of one train and takes the next ; he sees 
always the lecture ahead, will-o'-the-wisp that it is, 
leading him on wild journeys, but nothing seems to 
discourage or shake his faitli and his pui'pose. 
Once he jumps from an express train in rapid 
motion, but he is " the Lord's man," and is saved 
for a worse end. Later, he is on the steamer 



TWO HARD CASES. 131 

Stoningtoii when she collides with the Narragansett, 
but, strange providence ! the hour has not struck 
for him, though better men die there. Indeed, dur- 
ing all this lecture period, allowing for his unpaid 
board-bills and the occasional contributions of pity- 
ing men and women, it is still a wonder where his 
daily bread comes from, how he exists from day to 
day. He parts with his jacket to a conductor ; at 
Detroit they arrest him for a board-bilh — " naked 
and in prison," all the same to him ; he sows the 
word, and leaves the result to the Lord of the har- 
vest. Certainly it is sown in weakness, on stony 
ground. At last, after nearly two years of that 
planting, he leaves the lecture stand ; though it is 
some -iionths later, after a little turn at law and 
the insurance business in Chicago, again, that he 
makes his -final exit from the lecture platform, in 
Boston, after vainly attempting to demonstrate, in 
his peculiar fashion, to the infidels in Paine Me- 
morial Hall, the self-evident fact that two thirds of 
them were going down to perdition. 

Over this period of time, which we may call the 
lecture epoch, there was, at the trial, the usual con- 
flicting testimony in regard to Guiteau's mental 
condition as observed by those who saw him then. 
Those who did not hear him attempt to lecture, 
and who had no talk with him in regard to the sec- 
ond coming, as well as those who in any way suf- 



132 TWO HARD CASES. 

fered in the matter of board-bills or non-payment 
of dues at his hands, saw no insanity. Tlie gen- 
eral impression left upon the minds of those who 
heard him on theology "was that he was mentally 
deranged. Rev. Mr. Burton, however, thought 
the word to use was " badly arranged " ratlier than 
'•deranged;" he evidently believed in congenital 
defect instead of active disease ; but on the whole 
the testimony of the defense was a unit on the in- 
sanity of his theology. 

In marked contrast to this, and really the strong- 
est testimony offered by government on this point, 
was that of the Rev. Dr. Withrow, of the Boston 
Park Street Churcli. Guiteau seems to have first 
sought his acquaintance in the hope of obtaining 
permission to deliver a lecture on Ingersoll in the 
Doctor's church ; a lecture which, after considera- 
ble trouble in securing a suitable place for delivery, 
he finally gave in the hall of the Methodist Book 
Concern, to an audience of about a dozen, the 
night being stormy. Though he failed of securing 
the Park Street Churcli for his lecture, he still 
attended service there, and was so constantly at 
the Friday evening meeting as to attract Dr 
AV'ithrow's attention in an audience of three to 
live hundred jjcople. The Doctor said Guiteau 
was usually present, and that he att(uided the other 
meetings of a similar character ; also the Tuesday 



TWO HARD CASKS. 133 

evening meetings, that occurred every fortnight, 
and were pai'tiully social in their arrangement. 
While other " dead-beats " have a habit of frequent- 
ing theatres and drinking saloons, this man seems 
to have had a singular idiosyncrasy for being con- 
stant at prayer-meetings and similar places of en- 
joyment to him. At these meetings the Doctor 
had, several times, the opportunity to hear him 
speak on the religious theme under discussion, and 
had also several conversations with him. He was 
positive that he knew Guiteau in Boston in the win- 
ter of 1878-79, and the following one of 1879-80; 
that he saw him more frequently the first season, 
and that most of his conversations with him and 
his observations of him were during that time, 
but that he saw nothing different in his appearance 
the second winter : and in answer to the question 
wliether he ever saw anythino- to indicate to him 
that he was an insane man, or a man of unsound 
mind in any respect whatever, he said, '" Oh, never ; 
not the least; not the first sign of it." He im- 
pressed him as " an ill-natured man, a very acute 
man." 

Assuming the dates to be correct. Dr. Withrow 
saw Guiteau in the time of one of his lecture 
tours ; he did not hear him lecture, but did hear 
him speak at the meetings. And it is certainly 
remarkable that, sane or insane, the man could so 



134 TWO HARD CASES. 

far control his egotism as to exhort on the subjects 
that would naturally be presented at a religious 
meeting, and not give vent to any of his peculiar 
views, which he was apparently embracing every 
opportunity to jDroclaim, and which, it can hardly 
be doubted, he thought would call attention to liim- 
self as a profound thinker, whether we allow or 
deny that he believed in the views that he ad- 
vanced. This continued repression of the egotistic 
vanity of the man must stand as one of the many 
anomalies of the case, from whatever point it is 
viewed. If he continually re^Dressed all allusion 
to his inspired labors, it is not strange that T>v. 
Withrow, meeting him only in that general way, 
saw no insanity about him ; the strangeness lies in 
the fact of the concealment. 

But thougli Guiteau retired from the lecture 
field in the autumn of 1879, he did not abandon 
theology. He prepared to issue an inspired vol- 
ume, containing his views on " the second coming," 
his lecture on •' perdition,'' a collection of selections 
from the '• Berean" which he had passed through 
the crucible of his own brain, and had apparently 
persuaded himself had been, by the substitution of a 
word here and the alteration of a sentence there, 
transmuted into his own, — a "direct revelation, 
equal to anything in the New Testament." 

Those who believed him only a fraud will see in 



TWO HARD CAiiES. 135 

this stolen material from tlie " Bereaii," convincing 
proof of the correctness of their opinion. Those 
who have had much occasion to peruse the produc- 
tions of the insane, in whom the religious idea is 
prominent, will recall the frequency with which 
these writings are a mere rehash of Scripture and 
books of devotion ; not, therefore, deenaed the less 
important as emanations from their own minds by 
the writers themselves. 

" The Truth, a Companion to the Bible," by 
Charles Guiteau, was issued as a bound volume, in 
Boston, some time in November, 1879. Guiteau 
had evidently expected great results from its pub- 
lication. It was sent to leading ministers and edit- 
ors. The world, as he supposed, was in a state of 
expectancy, waiting for the word. The preface 
modestly requested for it " a careful attention, to 
the end that many souls may find the Saviour." 
But there was no awakening ; he says, '' It fell 
perfectly flat ; I did not sell fifty copies," and he 
sat down in disgust. 

This was the subsidence of theology, at least 
for a time. Mentally, I believe it was a period of 
quiescence. In this little eddy of his life, the 
last before the whirlpool, he seems to liave taken 
an office in Boston, and for some months endeav- 
ored to get back to work in soliciting life insur- 
ance. But the tide was rising again ; the impor- 



136 TWO HARD CASES. 

tant presidential campaign of 1880 was drawing 
on. When the nomination of Grant was fore- 
shadowed, he went up to the state library, and 
there wrote out his campaign speech for the great 
general ; but the Chicago Convention named an- 
other. It would not do to throw away the brain- 
work he had put into that eulogy, so, as with the 
cheap wood-cuts that do duty in our illustrated press 
a dozen times for military heroes under different 
names, he retouched it a little, erased Grant and 
wrote in Garfield, closed his Boston office, and, tak- 
ing passage for New York on the Stonington, on 
that dark night of shipwreck, the 11th of June, 
1880, he entered upon liis political cai-eer. There 
was storm and darkness, and the curtain rising for 
the last act. 

Guiteau went to New York, and offered his serv- 
ices to tlie Republican National Committee, intend- 
ing to throw the weight of his speech into the 
scale, not alone as a campaign document, but as 
one of the great oratorical efforts of the time. 
Very early he took it to Saratoga in manuscript, 
but the auspices do not appear to have been favor- 
able for delivery ; he accumulates at least one 
board-bill there, and retuins to New York. In 
some way, a way that will ever be mysterious to us, 
he gets his manuscript in type, with the imprint of 
the National Republican Committee upon it. What 



TWO HARD CASES. 13T 

was this speech ? Just two pages, entitled " Garfield 
against Hancock," of very commonplace thought 
on the situation. G. C. Gorham testifies, after pe- 
rusing it, that it was " neither remarkable on the 
one hand, nor ridiculous on the other." E. A. 
Storrs says that " it appeared to have been printed 
under the auspices of the National Committee, 
which seemed to him, after reading the speech, to be 
curious." That was not the way it was viewed by 
Guiteau. At that time he spoke to Storrs in strong 
commendation of it. The way he handled it shows 
something of his estimate of it ; it became his let- 
ter of introduction on all occasions. It was his in- 
troduction to General Logan, to General Arthur, 
to General Garfield, and I know not to how many 
others. Not being then in " theology," he makes 
no claim to inspiration for it ; though there is little 
doubt that he thought it one of the most able pa- 
pers of the campaign, perhaps about as near in- 
spiration as theology ever comes to politics. He 
says he never delivered it but once ; that was before 
a colored assemblage in Twenty Fifth Street, New 
York. He began the address, but the night was 
warm, there were plenty of other speakers ready to 
go on, so he stopped midway, as was his wont, and 
handed the document to the reporter. But during 
the entire campaign he remained at his post of duty, 
hanging around the committee rooms, holding him- 



138 TWO HARD CASJ::S. 

self in readiness for an engagement. Meantime it 
became necessary, from his stand-point, that he 
should live and do something to keep alive, and 
accordingly we find him, at odd moments, solicit- 
ing for a life insurance company. But his heart 
was in the political work, and his presence gener- 
ally about republican headquarters in New York. 
Of what earthly use, other than ornamental, he 
was about those headquarters, vvhat possible service 
he can have rendered to ihe party by his labors, it 
is difficult to imagine ; still he says he "was with 
Arthur and Grant in the campaign," and there is 
little doubt he shook hands with both of these 
gentlemen. Strong men girt themselves for the 
fray, and he looked on approvingly. Storrs says 
vi'hen he met him there, in August; "he was 
apparently in excellent spirits, rather exultant in 
his manner ; " no doubc he felt he was doing valiant 
work. The tide turned with the October elections 
in Ohio and Indiana, and Guiteau, taking time by 
the forelock, hurried off a note to General Garfield, 
writing from the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York, 
but in his haste not stopping to date it. This let- 
ter could not be found for production at the trial, 
and I give the version that a^^peared in the news- 
papers, which I presume is a correct one, as it cor- 
responds very closely to what Guiteau at the trial 
stated as its substance. 



TWO HARD CASES. 139 

Dear General, — I, Charles Guiteau, hereby 
make application for the Austrian mission. Being 
about to many a wealtliy and accomplished heir- 
ess of this city, we think that together we might 
represent the nation with dignity and grace. On 
the principle of first come, first served, I have 
faith that you will give this application favorable 
consideration. Charles Guiteau. 

One, reading such a letter, with no knowledge 
whatever of the circumstances of the writer, know- 
ing only that it was written in good faith, in the 
expectation of furthering the writer's claims for the 
office, and not as an idle joke on the recipient of 
the letter, would hazaad little in saying that it was 
the production, either of an insane man or a fool. 

Guiteau remained in New York after the election, 
writing General Garfield a reminder of his appli- 
cation for the Austrian mission some time in Jan- 
uary, and on the day following the inauguration he 
arrived in Washington. He says he gave up the 
hope of tlie mission as soon as he knew Blaine had 
been appointed Secretary of State. Mucli as it 
was below his deserts, he decided to content him- 
self with the Paris consulship as the reward for his 
services during the campaign. Remember this is 
not a joke with him; it is dead earnest. In the fur- 
therance of this appointment, within a week after 



140 TWO HARD CASES. 

his arrival in AYashiiigton, he pushes himself through 
the room of the private secretary into the Presi- 
dent's apartment, and into his presence. This is his 
account as a witness : " He [the President] was 
in conversation with several politicians. I remem- 
ber specially Levi P. Morton, now minister to 
France, and General Tyner. I knew both of these 
gentlemen. As soon as they saw me, I was very 
cordially received by them [query, How ?J. Well, 
they were glad to see me, and Mr. Morton espe- 
cially asked about my liealth, and how I was getting 
along, etc. I only saw him a moment. As soon as 
General Garfield was at leisure I stepped up to 
him and gave him my speech. Of coarse he recog- 
nized me at once. I marked my name, and Paris 
consulship at the end of it, connecting it with my 
name, and I gave it to him, and I told him that I 
was an applicant for the Paris consulship; and he 
looked at it, and I left him reading the speech, and 
retired." What an original style of application ! 
— the speech that did the woi'k, and the author's 
name modestly connected by a long line sweeping 
around the margin, with " Paris consulship " writ- 
ten at the bottom of the page. How delicately 
the request is conveyed, yet hidden from the or- 
dinary observer almost as completely as Pickwick 
concealed his affections for the widow Bardell un- 
der " chops and tomato sauce " ! How perfectly 



TWO HARD CASES. 141 

ridiculous, but for the terrible tragedy which they 
foreshadowed, all these interviews and patroniz- 
ing notes to the President, with their suggestions 
drawn from his long political experience, appear 
when you brino- them, out of the weird liirht in 
which his brain shaped them, into common day ! 

It is hardly necessary to reproduce here those 
notes of Guiteau which were marked " private," and 
in rapid succession poured in upon the President 
■ from his anteroom, where Guiteau, waiting day after 
day, came at last to be commented on as peculiar by 
those in attendance. They have been printed and 
reprinted in the newspapers throughout the country, 
until every one is familiar with them. It cannot 
be doubted that these applications for the Austrian 
mission and the Paris consulship were made in 
good faith. They show that Guiteau believed him- 
self capable of filling either. In my interviews 
with him at the jail, I questioned him in regard to 
his fitness for the consulship at Paris. I found he 
really knew nothing of the service; he was ignorant 
of the French lan^uao-e ; but — and this seemed to 
me to be the sum of his qualifications — his name 
was of French origin, his ancestor was a Huguenot. 

Secretary Blaine testified he did not think Mr. 
Guiteau belonged to the rank and class of men who 
would naturally be assigned to the Paris consulship, 
but he also stated that there was nothinir which 



142 TWO HARD CASES. 

struck him as peculiar in this case, and added, 
" Probably, if I had never seen but one office-seeker, 
I should have thought he was very persistent; but 
I had seen so many of the same kind that I was not 
surprised." If Guiteau was a fair sample of the 
" forty men " waiting for office, every morning, at 
the secretary's rooms, as he would imply, it shows 
that there is call not only for " civil service reform," 
but for missionary labor, at the national Capitol. 

It was not the post-office at some cross-roads in 
the wilderness that he sought, but tlie Austrian 
mission, or, failing of that, the Paris consulship. 
At that moment, was there another sane man liv- 
ing in America, who believed Guiteau possessed 
a single qualification for either of those high offices ? 
Could he have done anything better calculated to 
demonstrate his unfitness for any office than to 
write the notes which he did ? When he called 
uj)on Senator Logan, in March, to get him to rec- 
ommend him for the Paris consulship, he did not 
strike him as a person whom he desired to recom- 
mend for an office of that character, or for any other 
office. His wardrobe appeared to have anticipated 
the summer, though this was the middle of March, 
of a backward spring. With an ordinary coat, he 
wore pants that were evidently a contribution from 
the List warm season. Sandal rubbers did duty in 
lieu of either boots or shoes, and stockings were 



TWO HARD CASES. 143 

omitted entirely. There he stood, urging his claims 
for tlie office, ready to take his credentials for 
Paris, but in full court dress for Dahomey. 

At a second interview, a day or two later, the 
senator says Guiteau showed more excitement in 
his manner, and, going down to his breakfast that 
morninof, at his boardino:-house, and observing him 
at the table, he called the landlady, and told her 
that he thought that gentleman was " a little off 
in his head, a little inclined to be crazy, and that 
she had better not have him in her boarding-house.'* 
Now, as Guiteau relied very much for his success 
upon the support of Senator Logan, he would cer- 
tainly wish to make as favorable an impression on 
him as possible. We have seen what that impres- 
sion was. 

On the other hand, he waited upon Senator Har- 
rison about the same time, preceding his interview 
with a bundle of the pamphlet edition of " Gar- 
field against Hancock." The senator gave him no 
encourao-emeut tliat he would assist him in his ef- 
forts for office, and in several short interviews 
which he had with him he observed nothing in 
conversation to lead him to the conclusion that 
Guiteau was not a sane man. There is no doubt 
that his appearance varied somewhat with bis mood, 
and that as a rule he did not attract attention ))y 
his behavior. 



144 TWO HARD CASES. 

The spring of 1881 was clearly one of great 
expectations with him ; he retiUy thought he should 
receive the consulship, which he felt was due him 
for his arduous services in the campaign. Mr. 
Storrs, who met him at the Riggs House, says he 
appeared very confident and exultant about it. 
The dead-lock in the Senate deferred his hope, 
day by day, putting its fulfillment further away. 
Then came the nomination of Robertson for the 
New York collectorship, the gauntlet thrown down 
between the administration and the stalwarts ; then 
Blaine's sharp reply, " Never speak to me again 
on the subject of the Paris consulship ; " and fol- 
lowing close upon it the resignation of Senators 
Conkling and Piatt. Was everything going to 
wreck, and with it his Paris consulship ? This 
was the question that came to liis mind. The tide 
of politics that had cast him up, but had brought 
him no position, was ebbing away, and carrying the 
Republican party with it. He was a Grant man 
from the start. Blaine was " a bad man," and in 
the hands of incompetent leaders ; everytliing was 
going adrift ; the Democrats would come back into 
power, and perhaps another civil war was impend- 
ing. 

And now a great conception dawned on him. 
Following along his life, we have seen how, from 
time to time, great schemes have taken possession 



TWO HARD CASES. 145 

of his mind, and how, after a period of incubation, 
they have expanded into gigantic failures. Like 
forest fires, they liave swept everything before 
them for a time, burning themselves out at hist. 
He says — and I think he tells the truth — that 
on Wednesday night, after the New York senators 
had resigned, he went to bed about eight o'clock, 
greatly perplexed and worried about the situation. 
Before he went to sleep the impression came over 
his mind like a flash that if the President was out 
of the way everything would go well. That is all 
there is to it. It was only necessary to plant such 
a seed in such a mind, and all the rest would grow 
like a upas, poisoning everything. It would grad- 
ually gather about it all his thoughts, all his ener- 
gies, all that terrible pseudo religious element that, 
false as it is, controls him all the same. But it did 
not become overpowering and irresistible at once, 
if ever. He says the idea was repugnant to him 
at first, and he kept throwing it off. He told Dr. 
Gray that if he had received the Paris consul- 
ship at any time prior to fully making up his mind 
to remove the President he would have taken it 
and gone off ; as Guiteau, interrupting, said. Any 
time prior to the 1st of June. I believe he told 
the truth as to his feelings in this matter. No one 
knew better than his eminent questioner about the 
formative stage of morbid ideas, and how some 
10 



146 TIVO HARD CASES. 

powerful motive, acting upon the individual, will, 
sometimes, as in the case of a real sorrow to a 
melancholic, dislodge them entirely. But was it 
ever once heard of that an insane person should 
name a limit of time before which a reward would 
have checked an insane act ? Often : take one in- 
stance. An insane woman under my care threw 
herself into the river; rescued, I asked her, " Why 
did you do this ? " "I kept from it as long as I 
could," was her reply, " and if you had let me go 
home last Wednesday with my friends I should 
never have done it." I found tlie idea had been 
there for weeks, but the discouraged feeling about 
going home was what turned the scale. Lest it 
should be claimed that this was not insanity, but 
mere depression of spirits, from being kept too 
long in a hospital after recovery, T may say that, 
following this plunge in the icy water, she rapidly 
improved, was cheerful where she had been de- 
pressed, and some weeks later went home, appar- 
ently well. It was her misfortune to have an intem- 
perate husband, who again, a year later, worried 
lier into insanity, and she was once more placed in 
the hospital. I understood that she also recovered 
from that attack, ])ut some time after, the disease 
again recurring, she took her own life at home. 

The 1st of June found Guiteau with his mind 
fully made up to do the deed. For a full month he 



TWO HARD CASES. 147 

watched, and jilotted, and planned. We should be 
in ignorance of most of the history of this crime 
but for his own statement, his apparent eagerness 
to give a full account of the murder, from its first 
inception to its accomplishment, and to lay bare 
the inner workings of his own mind in all its hide- 
ousness. Perhaps that child-like confidence which 
leads him to state the details of his crime to the 
prosecuting officers and to the world, feeling that 
the facts are all that are needed for his justifica- 
tion, is common in criminals ; I know it is in the 
insane. 

On the 8th of June he purchased his pistol and 
commenced practicing, being wholly unskilled in 
the use of fire-arms. On the same day he wrote to 
the Rev. Howard C. Dunham, of Boston, Mass., as 
follows : — 

RiGGS House, Washington, D. C, 
June 8, 1881. 

Dear Sir, — I wish you would send me by re- 
tarn mail here a copy of my book, " The Truth." 
I am preparing a new edition, and I have but one 
copy, and I wish another. I may be in Boston 
shortly to see some of my old friends. I have 
been in politics since last June. 

Yours ti'uly, Charles Guiteau. 

The pistol, with its ivory handle, to go into the 



148 Tiro HAPd) CASES. 

State Department to remind future generations of 
his dreadful crime, and " The Truth," in its revised 
edition, to go through the world, " to the end that 
many souls may find the vSaviour." 

Side by side with his preparation for the assas- 
sination, his revision of this religious work, " Tlio 
Truth," was going on, and the government brought 
Rev. Howard C. Dunham from Boston to prove 
this as one of tlie motives of the crime. The 
President of the United States was to be sacrificed 
to give an impetus to the sale of this inspired 
work ! Why, this is in a dream of the night ! No, 
in the broad daylight of the nineteenth century. 
Did the prosecution forget for the moment that 
this was a sane man, when they proved this mo- 
tive ? I would not be understood as denying that 
the thoufrht of a oreat sale for his book entered 
into his brain and was a part of this whole mental 
transaction. The government was perhaps right 
about it, but I wonder that they were willing to 
prove it. If true, it is the old story over again of 
" a big thing for God, for humanity, for himself ; " 
but tell me what other sane man in the world 
would take that way to advertise his book, or, hav 
ing taken it, expect to profit by the sale ? 

On Sunday morning, June 12, he put his pistol 
in his pocket, and went to the little church where 
General Garfield attended divine service. This 



TWO HARD CASES. 149 

place would Lave been public enough for his pur- 
pose, yet it is hardly probable that he had deter- 
mined to end the matter thai day, but his idea was 
rather to observe the President's position in the 
church with reference to possible future operations. 
He explains how, after the service was over, he 
went around and examined a window to see how 
the shot could be fired from that point without risk 
to others. If he did not go with the intention of 
shooting him that day, ^vhy did he take his pistol ? 
To accustom himself to the situation, and to be 
able to take advantage of any especially favorable 
opportunity. But the harder question to answer is 
this : Why did he make haste, in those early days in 
July, in the jail, to tell the story in all its details to 
the district attorney and the short-hand reporter, 
who, he thought, would publish it to the world ? 
Why tell it at all ? What need had he to rehearse 
all this stealthy watching and waiting in the church, 
at the railroad station, — that following in the 
night, which no eye but One saw? If he were the 
shrewd devil that they called him, and that alone, 
would he have shown himself so eager to fasten 
this cold-blooded murder upon himself, with all its 
damning circumstances of the most deliberate pur- 
pose, which remove his action as far as possible 
from the so-called irresistible impulse of the in- 
sane? 



150 TWO HARD CASES. 

The 18th of June he was ready for the deed. 
The President was going with Mrs. Garfield to 
Long Branch, from the same raih'oad station 
where the assassination actually occurred, two 
weeks later. Guiteau was up betimes, and down by 
the river practicing with his pistol. lie was at tlie 
station, in the ladies' w^aiting-room, and had en- 
gaged a hack for the cemeteiy or the jail ; his docu- 
mentary evidence was on hand ; there was the usual 
crowd in waiting : apparently, all the conditions 
were identical with those on the mornino- of the 2d 
of July, as President Garfield entered that la- 
dies' room, with his sick wife leaning on his arm. 
It was the unconscious pleading of that pale, sad 
face that prevailed against the murderous intent, 
and the human pity in his heart stayed his hand. 
Have we the anomaly of a demon but imperfectly 
depraved, or an insane man whose impulse is still 
resisted ? He went back to his room and wrote an 
apology for his weakness, which he added to his 
pile of documents designed for the public. 

He was at the same post a few days later, 
waiting for the President's return. There was 
no silent pleading of that pale face then, unless in 
memory. To human eye nothing was wanting in 
the occasion, nothing to arrest the stroke, but the 
inexplicable vacilhxting of the man; he said "it 
was warm, and he did not feel like it." And so 



TWO HARD CASES. 151 

President Garfield, unconscious of the shadow that 
was in waiting, passed out from that portal of death 
asfain unharmed. 

Then there is the evening of the 1st of July, and 
that stealthy walk, when the President almost kept 
step with his murderer ; but again the unseen wings 
covered him, and the death that lurked in that dark- 
ness passed by. What availed there in the night, 
that, alas, was powerless when the destruction came 
'• that wasted at noonday " ? Had it been revenge 
he sought, the revenge of a disappointed office- 
seeker, as the government claimed in the opening, 
what an opportunity was in his grasp ! Blaine and 
Garfield alone ; the man who had told him " never 
to speak to him again about the Paris consulship," 
and the man who might have given it to him, " if he 
would." Two shots from behind on unarmed men 
in the dusk, and then, in the confusion following, 
he would have escaped; the curtains of the night 
already closing around him, the secret of his re- 
venge hugged to his own bosom, in the kee^jing of 
himself and his God. In his cross-examination on 
this point Judge Porter gets him to say, by way of 
excuse for not shooting the President that night, 
" that it was a very hot, sultry night, and he did not 
feel like it at the time." " If General Garfield had 
returned alone at that time, I intended to remove 
him, but he came back with Mr. Blaine." But, if 



152 TWO HARD CASES. 

that was true, it was the old vacillation of purpose 
that sought out excuses for itself, for barely more 
than twelve hours later he shot him side by side 
with the same man, in broad daj'light, in the pres- 
ence of many witnesses. But it is more surprising 
that he followed and lurked for him at all that even- 
ing, than that, having the opportunity, he omitted 
to shoot him. In his state of mind, fully deter- 
mined on the removal, it was, perhaps, hardly pos- 
sible to avoid watching and following the President 
whenever the opportunity offered, by night or by 
day. Except for the chance of a contradictory 
action, to which an insane man is always liable, he 
would never have shot him in the night ; his man- 
ifestoes to the public were not designed for a secret 
murder. 

It is clear that he intended to proclaim him- 
self the remover of Garfield ; his deed a neces- 
sity of the political situation. I do not believe he 
ever expected to be tried. True, he had carefully 
arranged for flight ; but only to the jail, to avoid 
the instant danger from the mob, which he knew — ■ 
and in this he was historically correct — acts on the 
impulse of the moment, and never reasons unless 
under the grapeshot of a Napoleon, and then it 
ceases to be a mob : hence his letter to General 
Sherman. His manifestoes, prepared evidently with 
great care for the public, of which he was so proud 



TWO HARD CASES. 153 

when he told Judge Porter that they came not from 
Napoleon, but from liis " little brain ; " his news- 
paper clippings, which had wrought so powerfully 
with him ; his '" Truth " for the soul, greatest work 
of the age ! his deliverance of the country from 
impending civil war, — all this he was most anxious 
to get before the public throngh the medium of the 
press, feeling that, the momentary shock over, the 
cry would go up, " Guiteau, the patriot ! " and after 
four years of Arthur, — well, it might be the presi- 
dency. Could he afford to throw away all this by 
a midnioht murder at the hands of an unknown 
assassin ? If this dreadful " takinfj off " was re- 
ally so patriotic an act that he fancied the Deity 
prompted it ; if it was fraught with all the bless- 
ings tliat his disordered brain imagined ; then it 
was fitting that its consummation should be in a 
jDublic place and in the light of day. 

Undoubtedly there is some posturing for " noto- 
riety " in all this, as there was to be pecuniary 
gain from the sale of his inspiration. The ego- 
tism of this man's mind is such that '* I, Charles 
Guiteau," is, in a certain sense, tiie alpha and 
omega of this whole business, to which the setting 
np of the dominion of the stalwarts, the salvation 
of the country from civil war, and the dissemina- 
tion of " The Truth " were but secondary consider- 
ations. But consider what manner of mind that 



154 TWO HARD CASES. 

must be to have believed all this with or without 
ihe egotistic limitations. We shall look in vain for 
the other sane man in America who, even if he had 
reasoned himself into the belief that a mere party 
squabble about the collectorship of the New York 
custom-house had endangered the peace of the 
Republic, for which there was not one iota of the 
shadow of a foundation outside the idle brains of 
those whose business is the manufacture of news- 
paper sensations, and they, in their wildest talk, 
did not go beyond hinting a probable rupture in 
the Republican party, which is quite another mat- 
ter from the dismemberment of the Republic. But, 
granting that one sane man might be found to 
accept this, could he for a moment believe that if, 
to right matters, he deliberately proceeded to take 
the life of the chief magistrate of the nation by 
assassination he would, as soon as the first shock 
of the crime was over, be recognized as a patriot, 
protected by the President his crime had elevated, 
and be honored with office, or at least by the ap- 
proval of all good and loyal citizens ? This man 
believed this, and, believing, staked his life on it: 
hence he says, again and again, " The American 
people have something to say about this." 

Nothing outward foreshadowe'd the event. Rush 
R. Shippen, D. D., a clergyman of Washington, 
chanced to have a casual acquaintance with Gui 



TWO HARD CASES. 155 

teau, boarding at the same place during the month 
of June, exactly covering the time when, having 
decided on the assassination, he was watching for 
an opportunity to carry his design into effect. He 
had remarked nothing very peculiar about Guiteau, 
nothing that raised the question of his sanity to his 
mind. His conversations, with one exception, were, 
at the table, of the dead-lock at Albany, of their 
common acquaintance at Chicago, and of the revi- 
sion of the New Testament. The doctor says, 
'' We ate together three times a day during the 
month. I was not absent a day, and I think he 
was not." Singular man, who never missed a 
meal or betrayed any anxiety of countenance or 
manner in that month of June, when he twice 
waited at the station to assassinate the President 
of the United States, and once reconnoitred his 
church for the same purpose. Dr. Shippen's only 
conversation with him, except at the table, was in 
his own room, he having stepped in one Sunday 
afternoon to borrow a knife to sharpen his pencil, 
with which perhaps to put a finishing touch to his 
revision of the " Truth " or draft a manifesto. He 
gave the doctor an analysis of Dr. Paxton's morn- 
ing sermon on IngersoU ; asked the theme for Dr. 
Shippen's own evening discourse ; said he thought 
he would attend, and did so. This man, plotting 
all the week to serve the devil of revenge, if the 



156 TWO HARD CASES. 

tJjeory of the government is right, found time and 
inclination to go to the Presbyterian church in the 
morning ; stranger yet, remember the sermon, and 
attend Dr. ShijDpen's service in the evening, where 
he said they had " splendid music." What " music 
in himself," yet " fit for treason " ? What was this 
creature ? 

Whatever being he was, in this frame of mind he 
went to his work. That July morning he rose be- 
times, and before breakfast he took a walk in Lafay- 
ette Park, opposite the White House. He says, " I 
think I read the paper a little, and enjoyed the beau- 
tiful morning air, and rested myself ; " the night had 
been " hot and sultry," and it is hardly probable that 
he had slept well. At seven o'clock he returned 
to the Kiggs House, took his breakfast, went to his 
room, secured the pistol, wrapped it in a piece 
of paper, took his documents, and went back again 
into the " beautiful morning air" of the Park. He 
had kept his purpose well ; he had taken counsel 
with his own heart, and, as he says, the Deity 
alone. No other human being knevr^ the secret he 
was hidinij in his bosom that bright Julv morninir. 
About nine o'clock he took the horse-car from the 
Park to the railway station ; he engaged his car- 
riage for the Congressional Cemetery, and then the 
boy blacked his shoes, — it was dress parade for 
him that day ! He went aside, examined his pistol, 



TWO HARD CASES. 157 

replaced it in bis pocket, then left his bundle of pa- 
pers at the news-stand, the " Address to the Ameri- 
can People," etc. Afterwards he stepped out on the 
street a moment, walking around. As the time for 
President Garfield's arrival drew near he moved 
about the waiting-room ; as he said in his cross- 
examination, " I walked backwards and forwards, 
working myself up, as I knew the hour had come." 
" I had all that 1 could possibly do to do the act, 
any way." 

He had not long to wait ; a carriage rattled up, 
bringing the President and with him his Secretary 
of State. They came in by the ladies' entrance, 
passing close to Guiteau ; their earnest discourse 
was the latest confirmation to the assassin's '' in- 
spiration " in that supreme moment. There w^as 
no thunderbolt in w'aiting to arrest that hand, when 
human pity failed ; his weapon w^as out ; tw^o shots 
in quick succession, fired from behind, and the 
stronor man bowed himself, and the culminatiui; 
failure in the career of that miserable viper was ac- 
complished. A life of generous purpose, of noble 
aspiration, of grand opportunity, one of the foremost 
of our time, jxoins: out at the hand of him whose con- 
tinned existence, speaking only from the human 
stand-point, — that is all we have from which to 
view him, — had from birth been but a reflection 
on the wisdom of tlie Divine economy. 



158 TWO HARD CASES. 

Guiteau was arrested at the door, coolly making 
his way towards his carriage, and undismayed by the 
desolation before him, but blenching at the cry of 
" Lynch him ! " that began to rise ; he was hurried 
along to the police station, and thence driven rapidly 
away to the jail. The by-standers who looked on 
and the officers who arrested him agree that he was 
calm and collected, his chief anxiety being to have 
his letter to General Sherman delivered at once. 
There is some conflicting testimony with regard to 
the way in which he wore his hat, whether slouched 
over his face or not : there was probably no conceal- 
ment. Out upon the street, in charge of the offi- 
cers, he said, " I am a stalwart." '' Arthur is now 
President of the United States." In the carriage, 
on the way to the jail, he insisted on his letter to 
General Sherman being sent ; said again that he 
was a stalwart, and that he did it to save the Re- 
publican party and to save the country. 

The documents were evidently to his mind a 
very essential part of the transaction ; without them 
his motives were liable to be misunderstood. lie 
kept them by him, adding new ones each time that 
he deferred the stroke. As, aside from " The 
Truth," they appear to belong to the period of 
time between making up his mind to the deed and 
the date of its accomplishment, and were doubtless 
prepared by him as a complete vindication and ex- 



TWO HARD CASES. 159 

planation of his action, it seetns to uu- proper, even 
tliougli tliey are already well known to tin; piiMir, 
to reproduce the most important of them here. 
He began with the "Address to tiie American 
People,'' as follows : — 

^yAS^IX(;TON, D. C.,June 10, 18S1. 

To THE Ami.kican Peotlk, — T conceived the 
idea of removinij the President four weeks ai^o. 
Not a soul knew of my purpose. I conceived the 
idea myself and kept it to myself. I read the 
newspapers caiefully for and against the adminis- 
tration, and gradually the conviction settled on me 
that the President's removal was a political neces- 
sity, because he proved a traitor to the men that 
made him, and thereby imperiled the life of the 
Republic. At the last presidential election the R<*- 
publican party carried every Northern State. To- 
day, owinjx to the misconduct of the President and 
his Secretary of State, they could hardly carry ten 
Northern States. Tliey certainly could not carry 
New York, antl that is the pivotal State. 

Ingratitude is the basest oi crimes. That the 
President, un«ler the manip\ilations of his Secretary 
of State, has been guilty ol the basest ingratitude to 
the stalwarts admits of no denial. The exj)res>.»d 
purpose of the President has been to crusli General 
Grant and Senator Conkling, and thereby open the 



160 TWO HARD CASES. 

way for his renoinination in 1884. In the Presi- 
dent's madness he has wrecked the once grand old 
Republican party, and for this he dies. 

The men that saved the Republic must govern it, 
and not the men who sought its life. 

I had no ill will to the President. 

This is not murder. It is a political necessity. 
It will make my friend Arthur President, and 
save the Republic. I have sacriliced only one. I 
shot the President as I would a rebel, if I saw 
him pulling down the American flag. I leave my 
justification to Grod and the American people. 

I expect President Arthur and Senator Conkling 
will give the nation the finest administration it has 
ever had. They are honest, and have plenty of 
brains and experience. Charles Guiteau. 

Two days later he added : — 

Washington, Saturday Evening, 
June 18, 1881. 

I intended to remove the President this morn- 
ing at the depot, as he took the cars for Long- 
Branch ; but Mrs. Garfield looked so thin and clung 
so tenderly to the President's arm, my heart failed 
me to part them, and I decided to take him alone. 
It will be no worse for Mrs. Garfield to part with 
her husband this way than by natural death. He 
is liable to go at any time, any way. C. G. 



TWO HARD CASES. 161 

To Byrox Andrews and his Co-Journalists : 

I have just shot the President. 

His death was a political necessity, because he 
proved a traitor to the men that made him, and 
thereby imperiled the life of the Republic. I am 
a lawyer, theologian, and politician. I am a stal- 
wart of the stalwarts. I was with General Grant 
and the rest of our men in New York during the 
canvass. 

I have some papers for the press. 

I am going to the jail. 

You and your friends can see them there. 

June, 1881. ChARLES GuiTEAU. 

Washixgton, Monday, Ju7ie 20, 1881. 

The President's nomination was an act of God. 

His election was an act of God. 

His removal is an act of God's. 

(These three specific acts of the Deity may fur- 
nish the clergy with a text.) 

1 am clear in my purpose to remove the Presi- 
dent. Two points will be accomplished. It will 
save the Republic and create a demand for my 
book, " The Truth." See page 10. This book was 
not written for money. It was written to save souls. 
In order to attract public attention the book needs 
the notice the President's removal will give it. 

C. G. 
11 



162 TWO HARD CASES. 

For Mr. Preston: — 

Please mail this to the " Herald." They know 
me, and may wish to publish it. C. G. 

The last was wrapped around a copy of ''The 
Truth." There was also among these papers a 
kind o£ running commentary on this volume, " The 
Truth," signed " C. G." It is made up of notices 
of the work that had appeared in the Boston papers, 
toijether with suoirestions of his own ; amonor them 
he says, " This book cost me trouble enough, and 
I have no doubt but it is official. It was written in 
sections, as I had light, covering a period of nearly 
five years." There is besides a note to tlie " New 
York Herald," giving leave to print the entire 
book, if they wish. He suggests " to print one or 
two sections a day." There was with these papers 
a copy, on the back of a telegraph blank, of the 
Sherman letter : — 

June 27. 

To General Sherman : — 

I have just shot the President. 

I shot him several times, as I wished him to go 
as easily as possible. 

His death was a political necessity. 

i am a lawyer, theologian, politician. 

I am a stalwart of the stalwarts. 

I was with General Grant and the rest of our 



TWO HARD CASES. 163 

men in New York dnring the canvass. T am going 
to tlie jail, riease order out your troops and take 
possession of the jail at once. 

Charles Guiteau. 



One paper bears date of tlie day of tlie assassi- 
nation, thougli he told General Reynolds that it 
was actually written on the day before ; it is as fol- 
lows : — 

Washington, July 2, 1881. 

To THE White House: — 

The President's tragic death was a sad necessity, 
but it will unite the llepublican party and save the 
Republic. Life is a fleeting dream, and it matters 
little when one goes. A human life is of small 
value. During the war thousands of brave boys 
went down without a tear. I presume the Presi- 
dent was a Christian, and that he will be happier in 
Paradise than here. 

It will be no worse for Mrs. Garfield, dear soul, 
to part with her husband this way than by natural 
death. lie is liable to go at any time, any way. 

I had no ill will towards the President. 

His death was a political necessity. 

I am a lawyer, a theologian, a politician. 

I am a stalwart of the stalwarts. 

I was with General Grant and the rest of our 
men in New York duriiiir the canvass. • 



164 Tiro HARD CASES. 

I have some papers for the press, which I shall 
leave with Byron Andrews and his co-jonrnalists at 
1440 N. Y. Ave., where all the reporters can see 
them. 

I am going to jail. 

Charlp:s Guiteau. 

On the face of an envelope he had written, — 

I intend to place these papers, with my revolver, 
in the Library of the State Department. The re- 
porters can copy them, if they wish to, in manifold. 

Charles Guiteau. 

A sheet headed " Personal Mention " contained 
a brief statement, data of his life and occnpations, 
and folded with it, with snitable reference in the 
" Personal Mention," a copy of the ubiquitous, 
never-to-be-overlooked pamphlet, " Garfield against 
Hancock." These papers, with a quantity of news- 
paper clippings taken from his person, paragraphs 
violent in their language against the administration, 
make up the sum of his defense of the crime which 
he had prepared for the public, and which he in- 
tended should reach them through the newspaper 
press directly after the deed. 

This collection will be viewed from a variety of 
stand-points. Those whose business leads them to 
look over the effects that crazy tramps carry with 



TWO HARD CASES. 165 

them will be struck with the general resemblance 
which this defense of " shreds and patches " bears 
to the contents of their portmanteaus. Those be- 
lieving that he feigned insanity at the trial will 
perhaps claim that he had noticed these things, 
and manufactured his defense in accordance with 
that manifestation of insanity. But it nowhere ap- 
pears that he had had any opportunity for studying 
the habits of the insane, and, even if he had, that 
feature would not be especially remarked by an 
amateur, or, if observed, considered distinctive 
enough to be copied. I think also that most per- 
sons who have had personal observation of Guiteau 
would agree that imitation is not his forte ; he is an 
original, wherever you may class him mentally. 

I have styled it a defense of " shreds and patches." 
Sandwiched in with his " Address to the American 
Peoj^le " is a copy of " The Truth," with a sugges- 
tion to the editor of the " New York Herald " to 
give it a place in his daily issue, '' a section or two 
at a time." A memorandum of his letter to Gen- 
eral Sherman is preserved on the back of a tele- 
graph blank. Thought is scanty and variety of lan- 
guage wanting ; so the letter to General Sherman, 
the bulletin to the White House, and the note to 
Byron Andrews are largely made up from identi- 
cally the same sentences. His texts for the clergy 
are not complete without bringing in '' The Truth," 



166 TIVO HARD CASES. 

and on another sheet he has copied the book no- 
tices from old Boston newspapers, — notices which 
he probably wrote himself at the time and paid for, 
or omitted to pay for, as advertisements of his 
" Companion to the Bible ; " at all events, whether 
he wrote them or not, he intends that they shall 
"go thundering down" with his inspired work. 

At the last moment, apparently, seeing what a 
wealth of literature is liable to be scattered and 
lost with the distribution of his manuscripts, and 
observing " Garfield against Hancock " protruding 
from the bundle, he writes on the face of an empty 
envelope, " I intend to place these papers with my 
revolver in the Library of the State Department." 
Could the egotism of insanity go further ? A 
pocket crammed with newspaper cli23pings com- 
pletes the picture. 

He seems to me to have honestly prepared this 
defense with careful study, with the idea of at once 
placing before the public, in the most terse and 
vigorous sentences at his command, the facts of the 
political situation, the necessity for, together with 
the reasons that to his own mind abundantly justi- 
fied, the step he had taken, — reasons which he had 
no doubt would at once commend the act to the 
stalwarts, and would shortly receiv^e the indorsement 
of the sober second thouirht of the great American 
people. This, he felt, would carry him beyond 



TWO HARD CASES. 167 

courts and the forms of law, and place assassin- 
ation in such a cause side by side with the sacred 
riglit of revolution, on which the Republic was 
founded. The conclusion was absurd on the face 
of it. Where the people are the source of power, 
regicide would be suicide ; the American people 
would never countenance so monstrous a doctrine. 
But I am not arguing for the correctness of Guiteau's 
views, only that the statement of his view is the 
correct one. To reason with Guiteau and come to 
his belief we must have his mind, the only one of 
the kind in the United States ; but we must remem- 
ber that he communicated his views to no one else. 
He read his newspaper clippings, feeding his morbid 
ideas with those wretched husks, and then, by a re- 
ilex action of his own mind, he fancied tliat he did 
commune with the Divine intelligence, mistaking 
for an inspiration coming from without that which 
was really but a projection from his own defec- 
tive reason and disordered brain. This " inspi- 
ration " becomes secondarily an important factor 
in his case, and however widely it may differ from 
the form of inspiration that is now and then met 
with among the insane, and however impossible it 
may be to show W'ith any exactness the limitations 
and extent of its control of his actions, we cannot 
afford to ignore its existence or underestimate its 
importance. 



168 TWO HARD CASES. 

We may consider it briefly here. The education 
of the mass of mankind, if it deals witli inspira- 
tion at all, treats it as a thing of the distant past ; 
teaches tliat in the nascent period of the human 
race a few holy men attained to that nearness of 
life with the Infinite One that their ears listened 
to the Eternal Word, their eyes were opened to 
the Light, they saw " that Life which was the 
Light of men," and they wrote for our instruction 
what we call inspiration ; and now, for thousands 
of years, it has been the all but universal belief 
that direct inspiration is no longer to be ex- 
pected, and that he who claims now that he hears 
the audible voice of God, or with mortal eye sees 
the Lord, must be insane. But this is not the in- 
spiration that Guiteau means ; he said to Judge 
Porter, on the cross-examination, " I don't get my 
inspiration in that way." From his childhood he 
was brought up to a belief in present inspiration ; 
it was the doctrine of the founder of the Oneida 
Communit3% Guiteau's father believed in it. Gui- 
tej;iu was himself converted to it while at Ann Ar- 
bor. He has always spoken of that conversion as 
" an inspiration ; " it was a call of the Lord, not 
by voice, or by vision, but felt in his heart. We 
have seen how it changed the current of his life, 
and, false though it was as a matter of vital relig- 
ion, it has to a certain extent continued to dorai- 



TWO HARD CASES. 169 

iiate his thoughts, if not to reform his morals. All 
along conceptions evolved out of his own brain 
have been forces in his life, that he has carried 
with him and studied over in his mind until he 
has convinced himself that they were inspirations 
from above. We speak of a happy thought ; he 
.says, I have an inspiration. In his private note to 
President Garfield, May 13, he writes, " The idea 
about '84 flashed through me like an inspiration," 
— it was a sensation to which he was accustomed. 
In his testimony we find, "An impression came 
over my mind like a flash that, if the President 
w^as out of the way, this whole thing would be 
solved." This was the germ of his latest inspira- 
tion ; as he says of it in his cross-examination, in 
May, it was an " embryo inspiration," which seems 
to me a most accurate expression for it. He further 
states, in his testimony, " I kept on reading the 
papers, with my eye on the possibility of the Pres- 
ident's removal, and this impression kept working 
upon me, grinding me, pressing me, for about two 
wrecks. At the end of two weeks my mind was 
thoroughly fixed as to the necessity for the Presi- 
dent's removal and the divinity of the inspiration." 
" That is always the way that I test the Deity. 
"When I feel the pressure upon me to do a certain 
thing, and I have any doubt about it, I keep pray- 
ing that the Deity may stay it in some way if I am 



170 TWO HARD CASES. 

I do not forget that this is the testimony of a 
man under trial for his life, with every motive to 
explain away his criminality, if such explanation 
were possible ; but as he is trying to explain his 
inspiration, and as his statement is constantly ex- 
plaining it further and further away from the ordi- 
nary inspiration observed among the insane, and 
allying it more and more closely with what we 
designate as mental convictions, rather than inspi- 
rations, I think we have a right to assume that it is 
the truth, and take advantage of it. This seems to 
me about the amount of it : if an extraordinary 
suggestion arises in his mind, he is, all his life, 
accustomed to challenge it, whether it be an in- 
spiration ; and he weighs it and studies over it, 
whether there is much to recommend it, what could 
be accomplished by it, whether it is the thing for 
hiui to do, and how far the religious element of his 
nature is involved in its accomplishment. The last 
appears to be the distinction that he draws between 
the Divine inspiration and the worldly conception, 
as, for example, between the "Inter-Ocean" project 
and the " Theocrat." The inspiration, apparently, 
comes in to confirm conclusions at which he has 
arrived by his own reasoning. Hence, he does not 
put his inspiration forward in his defense, left for 
the press and the American people at the time of 
the assassination. It was the pressure behind his 



TWO HARD CASES. 171 

own convictions, but it was no argument ; the sal- 
vation of the Republic and the Republican party, 
— tliis furnishes the necessity for the act ; the in- 
spiration is to him to do it. It is true he does 
say in the Address, " I leave my justification to 
God and the American people," and in the texts 
for the clerg}-, " His removal is an act of God ; " 
but he also speaks of the nomination and election 
as acts of God. It is right to mention here that in 
the comments he left to be published in regard to 
"The Truth" he nowhere states tliat he was in- 
spired to write it, but he does say, " I have no 
doubt but it is official." 

Tlie prosecution claimed that he never used the 
word "inspiration" in connection with his crime 
until July 19, more than two weeks after the 
shootino; and then after General Revnolds had 
acquainted him with the utterances of the stalwart 
leaders and editors in detestation and abhorrence 
of him and his crime. Kept, as he had been, locked 
from all access to the newspapers, and in total 
ignorance of public sentiment, there is no reason 
to doubt that the news astounded him. Up to that 
time he had felt sure that the stalwarts would at 
least protect him from harm. Now, learning that 
his papers had not been published, and feeling that 
his motives were misunderstood, he wrote, on the 
spur of the moment, an "Address to the American 



172 TIVO HARD CASES. 

I^eople," taking the whole responsibility of the 
shooting upon himself, claiming that he acted only 
from patriotic motives, for the good of the Ameri- 
can people ; as he said, " I did my duty to God and 
the American people." This was on the 18th of 
July. On the next day he wrote out, also foj" pub- 
lication, another vindication, addressed to the pub- 
lic, in wdiich, among other things, he says, "My 
motive was .purely patriotic. Not a soul in the 
universe knew of my purpose to remove the Pres- 
ident. It was my ow^i conception and execu- 
tion, and, wdiether right or wroii<r, I take the en- 
tire responsibility of it." Near the close of this 
paper he says, '' Whether I live or die, I have got 
the inspiration worked out of me." This, the gov- 
ernment contended, was the first time that any one 
had heard of the inspiration. The defense, believ- 
ing he had spoken of it the very day of the shoot- 
ing, asked to be allowed to put Brooks and Kath- 
bone on the stand, who interviewed Guiteau in his 
cell the night of the 2d of July. 

Rathbone was absent in Cincinnati, and only 
Brooks testified. His statement was tliat at mid- 
night of the day of the shooting he went to Gui- 
teau's cell with Rathbone and his (Brooks's) son. 
Guiteau had retired, but raised himself up in his 
bed, and exhibited great anger and excitement at 
having his rest disturbed. Brooks does not remera- 



TWO HARD CASES. 173 

ber that he said anytliing of a pressure, a divine 
pressure, or an inspiration. He did say that he 
" had taken God into account ; that he had thought 
over it and praj'ed over it for six weeks ; and tlie 
more he had thought over it and prayed over it the 
more satisfied he was that he had to do this thing." 
No doubt Detective Brooks narrated the talk sub- 
stantially as it took place, and Guiteau said in the 
court, " Mr. Brooks has stated the conversations 
that occurred between us on the two occasions 
very correctly indeed." Yet I believe it to have 
been true that at the first visit of the detectives, 
the night of the 2d of July, he did say, either to 
Brooks or Rathbone, that he acted " by an inspi- 
ration from God." At an interview with Guiteau 
in jail during the trial, but before this testimony 
was introduced, I asked him who was the first per- 
son to whom he had mentioned inspiration in re- 
gard to the President's removal. He said at first 
he thought to General Crocker, the warden of the 
jail ; but after thinking the matter over for some 
little time, without suggestion from me, he broke 
out, impulsively, " Why, the very first night I was 
here Brooks had a long talk with me, and I told 
him it was an inspiration ; " adding, " You see 
Brooks ; he will tell you all about it." The Bos- 
ton " Daily Globe " published a dispatch from 
Washington, dated July 5th, in which their corre- 



174 TWO HARD CASES. 

spondent stated that Detectives Brooks and Rath- 
hone had a conversation with Guiteau at the jail ; 
and the coiTCspondeut, going on to narrate what he 
told them in regard to the shooting, uses the exact 
expression, by '"an inspiration from God." I under- 
stand a simihir statement of the interview appeared 
in other papers. Now it is easier to believe that 
he did use the word " inspiration " either to Brooks 
or Rathbone, and that it was so stated by one of 
them soon after, than to suppose that the reporter 
put into his mouth the exact word tliat lie found it 
important to use two weeks later. Guiteau cer- 
tainly did not get it from the newspapers, for he 
was not allowed to read them. General Reynolds 
showing him the first that he had seen. General 
Crocker told me that he did not remember hearins: 
him speak of inspiration until after General Rey- 
nolds's visit. Dr. Noble Young, physician at the 
jail, whose official duties led him to see Guiteau 
nearly every day, testified that he had a conversa- 
tion with him a few days after his entrance to the 
prison, in which he said " he was inspired to do it," 
but the doctor was unable to locate the time exactly. 
But whether he made use of the word or not, this 
seems to me to be the fact about the inspiration of 
Guiteau : it was there all the wliile, but it was just 
the same inspiration that he had experienced sev- 
eral times before in his life ; to his mind it was an 



TWO HARD CASES. 175 

indorsement that the Deity put upon his convictions, 
but thej were founded on the necessity of the po- 
litical situation, and without that situation, he says, 
there would have been no inspiration. Intellect- 
ually convinced of the correctness of his views, 
he felt a pressure impelling him to act, and this 
he styles an inspiration, a divine pressure. But 
when everything was going right, as he supposed, 
and his " Herald " article was enlightening the 
people, and the stalwarts were standing firm to pro- 
tect him, he says but little about the Divine press- 
ure which of course was over with the act. 

It has been somewhat the habit of his life to omit 
the Divine, as in the rough draft of his opening ad- 
dress we see that " Divine " was overlooked in writ- 
ing, and brought in later with the caret. Seeing 
great possibilities of fame and political advance- 
ment in the near future, he is willing, in his ego- 
tism, to take all the glory to himself. But when 
General Reynolds opens his eyes, and shows him 
for a moment the chasm that yawns before him, 
— that he has no friends among the stalwarts 
to stand by him, that his address to the public has 
been suppressed, and that the American people 
are ready to tear him to pieces, — then he is will- 
ing and anxious that the inspiration should appear, 
though it is clear that he believes the political sit- 
uation confirms the inspiration, and if understood 
would be defense enough of itself. 



176 TWO HARD CASES. 

He is like tlie mariner, who, when skies are 
clear and winds are fair, omits his devotions and 
half forgets his Deity ; but when the tempest falls, 
and his bark is drifting helplessly upon the rocks 
of a lee shore, he is on his knees calling upon God 
to help him. But your mariner believ^ed in God 
the same in the sunshine as in the storm, only his 
attention did not happen to be turned in that direc- 
tion ; and Guiteau, after his fashion, believed in 
his inspiration all the time. 

Guiteau's inspiration to remove the President 
was the same that was taught him in childhood, 
that he afterwards accepted and obeyed when he 
went to the Oneida Community. It was the self- 
same inspiration that John II. Noyes and his fol- 
lowers believed in ; they were not, therefore, in- 
sane, and this, then, was not an insane delusion, but 
a matter of education in Guiteau. Strictly speak- 
ing, there is no such tiling as an insane delusion. 
Insanity is in the man, and not in the idea. But, 
consider what a terrible jiower inspiration becomes 
when, as an honest belief, a matter of life-long edu- 
cation, like the demon of old it enters into an in- 
sane man's mind to dwell there. Religious fanat- 
icism is an element difficult of control, and bad 
enough in a sane mind. See how, in the Mid«lle 
Ages, it sent the Crusaders to the Holy Land, whit- 
ening the " via dolorosa " of their pilgrimage with 



TWO HARD CASES. 177 

bones ; how it roused up the Turk to meet them, 
courting death in battle, believing that, sword in 
hand, he passed to Paradise and the arms of houris. 
These were religious beliefs iu sane men, but when 
religious fanaticism takes possession of an insane 
man it gives him no rest, no peace, until his dread- 
ful work is done. 

So Freeman, of Pocasset, prayed God with his 
wife, and pondered his Word, till they both be- 
lieved what was " accounted to Abraham for rijrht- 
eousness ; " and to Freeman came, not a voice, not 
a vision, only an impression in his mind, that he 
must offer up his daughter, that his faith might be 
manifest to the world, believing that God was 
able to bring back life to that cold clay on the 
third morning, — "counting him faithful who had 
promised." 

So, too, William Myers came, he also from Illi- 
nois, a prophet in the spirit of the Lord, to gather 
the President elect into the kinrrdom of heaven. 
He came alone, keeping his own counsel ; no one 
knew the errand that he brought from the Lord. 
On the od of March, 1877, he went to the Capitol 
to study his position for the morrow. In his valise 
was found a ground plan of tlie Capitol, on which 
he had marked the spot where President Hayes 
would stand, and where he would also plant him- 
self. By a happy chance — alas, that we had no 

J2 



178 TWO HARD CASES. 

such second f)rovidence — he met at the Capitol a 
man whom he at once recognized as " Joseph of 
Arimathea," whom God had sent to assist him in 
delivering his country ; and after going with this 
man to his room, and carefully closing the door so 
that no other human being should know the secret, 
Myers disclosed to him his awful preparation for 
the removal. He was a dead shot, and but for this 
chance meeting with Joseph he would, on the 4th 
of March, 1877, have driven his ball home to the 
heart of President Hayes in the act of taking the 
oath of office. It would have fallen like a thunder- 
bolt from heaven, and Myers would have believed 
that the Deity had hurled it by his hand. 

Insane delusions, — they are only in the alphabet 
of their knowledge of the insane who do not un- 
derstand that genuine religious truths may, in the 
minds of those bereft of reason, become clothed 
with all the controlling power of the most fearful 
delusions. Not homicides alone, but stakes driven 
at cross-roads stand all along that way. 

It was by this road that Guiteau traveled, and 
when his mind was once made up to that which his 
insane reasoning convinced him the political situa- 
tion demanded, once on the President's track, I be- 
lieve there was no escape, unless some fortunate ac- 
cident had disclosed his purpose ; he would have 
shot him sooner or later, no matter how often liis 



TWO BARD CASES. 179 

design miirlit have been frustrated. He did not 
need the audible voice, the vision in the night; his 
insDiration was a familiar one. that he had tested 

A. ' 

before, and knew that whereof he affirmed ; yet, 
strange contradiction, worthy of an insane mind, 
each time his inspiration had ended in perfect fail- 
ure, while his faith in its latest manifestation was 
strono-er and blinder than ever. 

Twelve hours after the shooting he was asleep. 
The tempest of popular indignation was rising 
without, the hearts of a nation, anxious and sore, 
were keeping vigil, and he lay on his pillow, ap- 
parently asleep. Whence came this child-like re- 
pose to the murderer at such a time ? AYitli the 
insane, when a terrible purpose, sucli as, for ex- 
ample, an attempt at suicide long carried in mind 
and brooded over, is at last made, there is gener- 
ally a sense of relief; the explosion of feeling is 
followed by a calm. General Sherman had ordered 
out his troops ; everything would come out in ac- 
cordance with the inspiration ; he could rest now. 
Perhaps he was not asleep when roused up for that 
midnight interview with the detectives, but cer- 
tainly he was not pacing the room in agony ; he 
was lying quietly. lie was not feigning, with his 
expectations. What motive had he for feigning? 
After General Reynolds's visit, in view of a trial 
that he had found midit come, Guiteau did con- 



180 TWO HARD CASES. 

sider the ari^uments in favor of what he called lesral 
insanity, which he claimed at- the trial ; but at this 
time he would not willingly have allowed the ques- 
tion of his sanity to cast a cloud over his future 
prospects for the presidency. He said to General 
Reynolds on the 18th of July, after reading the 
published interview with General Logan, "The 
idea of General Logan saying I am insane ! I am 
not more insane than he is." Later, in September, 
he told me that, while his defense would be legal 
insanity, he did not believe that he was insane. 
When, a day or two afterwards, he found I was 
not a judge, as he had supposed, but a physician to 
the insane, he said to me, "• Doctor, I told you I 
did not believe I was insane, and I told you the 
truth, but there are plenty of people who do. There 
is my sister, who thinks so." No, this man was not 
feigning insanity; his composure was the mental 
rest after the storm. 

The warden of the jail told me, in September, 
that Guiteau had gained flesh, slept well, and eaten 
well all the time. For days after his admission to 
the jail, apparently, his only source of trouble was 
his apprehension that the President might not die ; 
for that, he told Dr. Young, was necessary to con- 
firm his inspiration, which it puzzled the good doc- 
tor to understand. It is true, that directly after 
General Reynolds had startled him for a moment 



TWO HARD CASES. 181 

out of his delusion about the support of the Amer- 
ican people and the stalwarts, he said to him, " I 
am glad that he lives," though he had previously 
seemed disappointed at the news of his probable 
recovery. In my interview with him the last of 
September, he told me that he had prayed, if it was 
the Lord's will, that the President might recover, 
but did not, when he prayed, think he would. So 
far as human eye could see, when the news of the 
decease came, and the tolling bells communicated 
the intelligence to the assassin, his mind experi- 
enced a relief, his doubt was over ; death had con- 
firmed the inspiration. The hardened criminal 
comes to take evervthincj with a calm indifference, 
but this man, a fraud, a shyster, a criminal in much, 
was still a novice in murder. Something else than 
familiarity with crime has given him this wonderful 
serenity, this real or apparent trust in the Being he 
claims to serve, through all these weary, wearing 
months of looking for the end. Viewed as acting, 
in what respect would he appear in any way differ- 
ent if he really believed he was " God's man," and 
the Deity was taking care of him? 

He is content; he has finished his work. I have 
wondered if his own picture of St. Paul, in " The 
Truth," does not sometimes come to mind, — Paul 
in his dungeon at Rome, watching for the Master, 
awaiting the end, — Paul the Apostle, and One 



182 TWO HARD CASES. 

greater than Paul, with whose life of wandering, in 
an assumption that would be blasphemy if it were 
not insanity, he parallels his own. 

But this discussion of the testimony and known 
facts having a bearing upon the life, character, and 
mental condition of Guiteau, though very neces- 
sary to a proper estimate of the man and his crime, 
has led us quite away from the court-room, upon 
whose scenes these outlines are based. Returnino| 
thither, we may properly enough, at this point, con- 
sider for a moment the frequent outbursts and in- 
terruptions to the trial by the criminal. In my 
opinion tliey were in no sense the result of an at- 
tempt to feign insanity. They all grew primarily 
out of his egotism, coupled with the delusions which 
had actuated him. They showed his vanity, his self- 
ishness, his entire want of respect for authority or 
the sensibilities of others, his marvelous quickness 
of perception, his total blindness to his own inter- 
est at times, his keen watchfulness of it at others, 
and, with all his wonderful intelligence in some re- 
spects, his utter inability to comprehend the grav- 
ity of the situation. But above all and beyond all, 
they were a perpetual proclamation to the audience 
and the world that this, " the greatest show on 
earth," was his show, that he was running it, and 
that he was the undoubted master of the situation. 



TWO HARD CASES. 183 

It is safe to say that there is not another man, sane 
or insane, in America who could duiDlIcate the per- 
formance. 

The case was probably lost for the defense be- 
fore the expert testimony was reached, — indeed, I 
hazard little in saying, lost before the issue of trial 
was joined ; but as the medical expert witnesses 
presented, probably, the most imposing array of 
jDhysicians familiar with the treatment of the in- 
sane ever assembled at a criminal trial, their testi- 
mony comes properly under notice here. It was 
the usual sad spectacle of scientific men, summoned 
not as " amici curiae " but as partisans for the op- 
posing sides. Here, perhaps, without impropriety, 
I may say that it was by the courtesy of the dis- 
trict attorney that I was invited, early in the case, 
to a seat with these eminent savants, and asked to 
remain through the trial, as being myself interested 
in these scientific questions ; and, while there, I 
was drafted into the service of the defense to re- 
spond to their hypothetical axiom. This gave me 
at once opportunity and excuse for being present 
with so distinguished a body of experts. 

Mr. Scoville, having no doubt himself of the in- 
sanity of his client, supposing it was only necessary 
for those familiar with the subject to examine him 
to at once pronounce him insane, and therefore, ir- 
responsible on the 2d of July, summoned the med- 



184 TWO HARD CASES. 

ical superintendents of institutions for the insane, 
as well as others skilled in the study of mental dis- 
ease, from the East, West, North, and South, irre- 
spective of their individual views ; not doubting that 
scientific men would go at once to the bottom of 
the matter, and through all the only too evident de- 
pravity recognize the disease. 

While this was very frank and honest, and con- 
clusively proved that he believed in the truth of 
the defense he was making, it was not a lawyer-like 
way of going to work to clear his client. A little 
consultation with any one familiar with the latest 
phases of scientific study, or the peculiarities of 
the sane mind, would have shown him that in an 
obscure case like this, among equally scientific 
men, very different conclusions as to health or dis- 
ease would be drawn from the same mental phe- 
nomena, — those conclusions depending largely upon 
the natural organization and temperament of the 
minds that formed them. To go farther than this, 
to point out what these differences in organization 
are, would be obviously out of place in what is 
designed to be simply a resume of the points 
brouoht out at the trial. It is enou<ili to call at- 
tention to the fact that such natural distinction ex- 
ists, and to say that it is a difference inherent in 
the very constitution and character of the mind it- 
self, and not at all explained by the artful sugges- 



TWO HARD CASES. 185 

tion to the jury, from Mr. Daviclge, that the ex- 
perts for the defense were " all moral insanity 
men," which was not the fact. 

With no concert of action, with no previous 
study of the case, unless from the newspapers, with 
very little desire for notoriety gained in defending 
a crimhial of this type, these eminent gentlemen 
arrived in Washington, in answer to a compulsory 
summons, to be confronted, if not confounded, by 
this anomaly of the age, and were said to have held 
a confei'ence — unwisely, as it seems to me — on 
his mental condition. But, whatever may have 
been their individual opinions, — and they were 
all men able enouijh to have formed and main- 
tained such individual opinions ; witness the pam- 
phlets of " a number of them, since, — it is clear that, 
collectively, they did not come up to the require- 
ments of the defense, as will appear further on. 

The jDrosecution did not thus cast their net into 
the sea. They wisely selected Dr. Gray, the well- 
known expert of Utica, whose mental organization 
and personal characteristics^ as well as his long ex- 
perience in the care of the insane and in the ex- 
amination of lunatics of the criminal class, have ad- 
mirably fitted him for the position of medical ad- 
viser and advocate which he occupied in this case ; 
and finding from the doctor's study of Guiteau that 
he was and always had been perfectly sane, the 



186 TWO HARD CASES. 

prosecution called to his support a number of pro- 
fessors, prominent in their different sections, most 
of them superintendents of hospitals, men of the 
same school of thought as Dr. Gray, and to each 
of them a special field was assigned. They also 
received into their ranks a number of recruits from 
the list of those subpoenaed, but not called, by the 
defense, and thus entrenched they awaited the at- 
tack. They had also this marked advantage over 
the defense, that the wind of popular favor blew 
on their backs, and not in their faces. 

The defense opened with Dr. Kiernan, a young 
man from the West, who was formerly connected 
with the hospital on Ward's Island, N. Y., and 
v/as now a practicing physician in Chicago, — also 
an editor of the " Medical Review," and a lecturer 
on mental diseases at one of the colleges. It might 
Well be thought an embarrassing position in which 
to place a young man, comparatively unknown, to 
open the medical expert testimony of this cele- 
brated case, on which the eyes of the world were 
lookinir, though I do not know as Dr. Kiernan felt 
it so particularly. But after establishing his qual- 
ifications to speak as an expert on insanity, Mr. 
Scoville contented himself by asking him a single 
hypothetical question, which assumed that " the 
prisoner at the bar committed the act of shooting 
the President under what he believed to be a Di- 



TWO HARD CASES. 187 

vine command, which he was not at liberty to dis- 
obey, and which belief amounted to a conviction 
that controlled his conscience and overpowered his 
will as to that act, so that he could not resist the 
mental pressure upon him," — a question which I 
have called a hypothetical axiom of insanity. 
This being answered Mr. Scoville turned him over 
to the cross-examination. It was apparently a 
pleasure to Mr. Davidge to converse with this 
young man. At the second question he drew out 
the fact that the witness did not believe in a fut- 
ure state of rewards and punishments ; and though 
this was not, strictly speaking, a scientific refutation 
of the prisoner's insanity, it was in effect to make 
a Philistine of this witness to the jury, who had 
stated under oath that they believed in the doc- 
trines of the Christian religion. Dr. Kiernan bore 
up manfully under the keen questioning of the 
veteran lawyer, until he drew out the further state- 
ment that five out of every twenty-five persons 
that one would casually meet on the street were on 
the road to the insane asylum, which finished this 
witness with the jury; for, as Mr. Davidge sug- 
gested, it would land two of their number there, if 
it were true. An unimportant non-medical witness 
followed, and then Mr. Scoville said, " Call Dr. 
Nichols." There was an expectant stir and a feel- 
ing of relief in the court-room. He was not " an 



188 TWO HARD CASES. 

agnostic." Dr. Nichols had been for tweuty-five 
years superintendent of the hospital at Washing- 
ton. He was more widely known, and respected 
here than any other expert in the conrt-room ; 
probably every member of that jury knew him 
personally. The judge on the bench had been an 
otRcial visitor of liis hospital for years, and if he 
was to appear for the prisoner it was Hector tak- 
ing the field. His testimony had saved Mary Har- 
ris, on trial for her life in the same room. And 
now the lawyers of the prosecution gathered them- 
selves up. In a few words the witness stated his 
present position and his length of service in differ- 
ent hospitals; then he replied affirmatively to the 
hypothetical question, and as the whole court-room 
was waiting for the real testimony about the i)ris- 
oner's state of mind, anticipating an intellectual 
treat, Mr. Scoville simply said, " That is all." 
There was blank astonishment and disappointment 
on all sides. The government was taken entirely 
aback ; they had no hypothetical question ready ; 
they were not allowed to ask any other, and Dr. 
Nichols left the stand and the case. 

Drs. Folsom, Godding, McBride, Channing, and 
Fisher, in rapid succession, answered the hypothet- 
ical axiom and sat down ; and this, with the excep- 
tion of the testimony of Dr. Spitzka, who arrived 
at a later date, closed the medical expert testimony 



TWO HARD CASES. 189 

for the defense. It was a complete surprise, but 
was it a success? Jii my ignorance of law 1 sup- 
posed that it was merely a shrewd move of the 
honest gentleman from Chicago to confine his wit- 
nesses to the expert opinion on a hypothetical case, 
and then, if the government introduced direct testi- 
mony from experts in regard to their observation 
of the prisoner since the 2d of July, to give tiie 
experts for the defense an opportunity to testify as 
to facts observed in surrebuttal. I now understand 
the real trouble lo have been a lack of positive 
belief, on the part of the experts for the defense, 
in the prisoner's insanity : some were of the opin- 
ion that the man was sane, and so^ testified later for 
the government ; and those who doubted his sanity 
were at a loss where to class him, and were indis- 
posed to create a new form of lunacy for the case 
and call it Guiteauism, nor were they quite pre- 
pared to adopt the " primare verrucktheit " of their 
young leader Kiernan, nor to class themselves 
among his five by accepting his ratios. It was the 
old story of a house divided against itself that came 
to naught. 

Observing as a by-stander, though called upon 
as one of the " posse comitatus," the hypothetical 
question appeared to me to be too near a truism 
to carry much weight to the jury ; as Dr. Cal- 
lender well expressed it when asked the ques- 



190 TWO HARD CASES. 

tioii in his cross-examination, " Under that hypoth- 
esis his insanity is a self-evident proposition." So 
it seems to me, although I am aware that Drs. 
Worcester and Strong were staggered by it ; and 
the distinguished leader ot" the government experts, 
after brin^ino: all his erudition to bear on it, did 
not feel equal to answering the question, though 
the objections that he urged to its answer might 
impress an unbiased listener as hypercritical. 
Then, too. Dr. Beard frankly told Mr. Scoville 
that he could not answer that question for the de- 
fense, but his mind was so organized that he would 
have found no difficulty in answering both of the 
hypothetical qu^tions for the government that that 
man was insane. It is a mistake to confound con- 
ceit of opinion with strength of mind ; but some 
men are so constituted that they cannot help it. 

The testimony of Dr. Spitzka was well delivered 
and highly entertaining to the audience ; I think 
that really prevented its producing any lasting ef- 
fect on the minds of the jury. Tiie doctor was in 
court after the issue of a compulsory process, which 
the counsel for the government evidently believed 
was done to heighten the effect of his very positive 
testimony for the defense. He had already criti- 
cised the district attorney's conduct of the case in 
unsparing terms in the public journals ; he held in 
perfect contempt the line of experts who sat in 



TWO HARD CASES. 191 

front of the witness-box, a feeling that was appar- 
ently reciprocated. 

The doctor stated that he found Guiteau insane ; 
" the marked feature of his insanity a tendency 
to delusion, or insane opinion, and to the creation 
of morbid and fantastical projects," " a marked im- 
becility of judgment ; and, while I had no other 
evidence than the expression of his face, 1 should 
have no doubt he was also a moral imbecile, or, 
rather, a moral monstrosity." He had decided 
ideas about the " monstrosity " that he was ana- 
lyzing ; he had his knowledge well in hand, was 
quick at repartee, had an assurance that was all- 
sufficient ; he had met most of the " bad four " on 
previous occasions, and was not afraid of them, and 
he rattled off his testimony with a volubility that 
was bewildering, and a positiveness of assertion 
that was startling to science. It was soon clear 
that the cross-examination was going not so ranch 
for Guiteau as Spitzka, and the result was a brill- 
iant gladiatorial contest of some hours, without 
discomfiture to the witness, who left the stand with 
the general impression in the room that this was 
an " agnostic " who did know, and what he knew 
he knew for certain. His estimate of Guiteau was 
in many respects correct. The congenital charac- 
ter of his case, in part, is at least probable ; there 
is some asymmetry of the head, but that of the 



192 TWO HARD CASES. 

mind is obvious ; and I have never had an hour's 
conversation with him without being impressed 
with the talk as that of an insane man, though less 
by its " fari'a^o " than its leadinof ideas and oreneral 
tone. But the effect of the solid points in the tes- 
timony was lost in the brilliancy of the rejoinders, 
and I doubt if the jury got beyond thinking the 
doctor a very clever man, who was fully a match 
for Mr. Davidge. 

Drs. McFarland and Beard were also called 
later, but the court decided not to admit their tes- 
timon3\ Drs. Earle, Kellogg, and Richardson, sum- 
moned by the defense, gave no testimony in the 
case, although they all examined Guiteau. This 
compjeted the medical expert testimony for the 
defense. 

The government placed on the stand fifteen ex- 
pert medical witnesses. To Dr. Fordyce Barker, 
the distinguished professor of obstetrics, from New 
York, was assigned the delivery of the definitions 
and limitations of the disease known as insanity. 
To Dr. Noble Young, physician at the jail, was 
given Guiteau's prison life. To Dr. Loring, the 
Washington oculist, the ophthalmoscopic examina- 
tion. To Dr. Hamilton, professor of nervous dis- 
eases, the questions of malformation of the head, 
or other possible abnormality, or nervous disease. 
To Dr. Kempster, the studies of cranial asym- 
metry, drawn from the conformateur. 



TWO HARD CASES. 193 

Most of these geutlemeu also testified on the 
mental condition of the prisoner, as observed by 
tlieraselves at the jail and in the court-room. Drs. 
AVorcester, Talcott, Stearns, Strong, Shew, Evarts, 
Barksdale, MacDonald, and Callender, a number 
of them recruits from the ranks of the defense, 
were expected to say what they could in regard 
to their observation of the prisoner, and answer 
the two hypothetical questions for the prosecution. 
It was reserved for Dr. Gray to sum up and close 
for the government on the whole medical aspect 
of the case. 

This was an imposing, crushing array, and as I 
watched its unfolding, and listened to the opinions 
that were presented, I could not doubt but the 
only apparent omission would shortly be stipplied, 
namely, the notes of the autopsy and the micro- 
scopic examination, although, from the form of the 
insanity, I knew these would add but little, if any- 
tliing, but that would vindicate the prosecution. 
To attempt to reproduce that testimony here would 
swell these outlines almost to the bulky propor- 
tions of the two immense volumes of the stenog- 
rapher's notes, and would be wholly unnecessary. 
They all pronounced the prisoner sane on the sec- 
ond day of July, 1881, and sane at the time of giv- 
ing their testimony. 

In a strictly medical paper it would be iuterest- 
13 



194 TWO HARD CASES. 

ing to trace how, through somewhat different men- 
tal processes and lines of mquhy, till these gentle- 
men arrived at the same conclusion at Jast ; but as 
Dr. Gray stands at the head, and went quite ex- 
haustively over the whole ground, a brief discus- 
sion of his testimony must suffice for our purpose 
here. Without intendino; to detract from the merits 
of, or relieve from due responsibility, any one of the 
distinguished experts who rendered such efficient 
aid in determining the full mental responsibility of 
Guiteau, and so securing the popular verdict in tlie 
case, I feel that I do them no injustice when, as I 
have no doubt they would say was right, I accord 
the first place to Dr. Gray. lie was called upon 
by the district attorney to decide whether this man 
should be brouo;ht to trial. He made the most ex- 
haustive preliminary questioning of the criminal ; 
patiently, day after day, he followed up his motives 
and hunted down his delusions, and from his own 
mind and his note-book he drew a careful picture of 
a shrewd, calculating, designing murderer, plotting 
and finally consummating the assassination of the 
Pj-esident, with a sane mind, a clear head, and a 
steady hand ; convincing first himself, then the 
lawyers for the prosecution, and lastly the judge 
on the bench and the jury in their seats, that this 
was a bad and not an insane man. 

From what we have already seen of this man's 



TWO HARD CASES. 195 

life, we can understand that to do this so that it 
would stand, not for this court and jury alone, but 
for that future tribunal to which we believe all 
these decisions will ultimately pass for review, was 
no light undertaking. He deserves great credit for 
this ; he must be willing, too, as I know he is, to 
bear the full responsibility which was involved in 
his decision. 

The testimony of Dr. Gray was carefully and 
deliberately — Mr. Scoville complained that it was 
argumentatively — given, and was in effect a law- 
yer-like summing up of the medical evidence for 
the government. The doctor's long familiarity 
with courts, as well as all phases of mental disease, 
admirably fitted him for the position he had taken, 
and his well-chosen words, earnestly spoken, pro- 
duced a jDrofound impression on those who heard 
him. He spoke as fully realizing the importance 
of having no mistake in the verdict. 

After statiuix at considerable lencjth, as it was 
drawn out by the district attorney, the responsible 
positions he had held, the honorary distinctions he 
had received, and the very large number of cases of 
insanity that had passed under his observation dur- 
ing his term of now more than thirty years' continu- 
ous service at the State Lunatic Hospital at Utica, 
N. Y., the doctor gave the following definition of in- 
sanity : " Insanit}^ is a disease of the brain, in which 



l96 TWO HARD CASES. 

there is an association of mental disturbance, a 
cliange in the individual, a departure from himself, 
from his own ordinary standard of mental action, a 
change in his way of feeling and thinking and 
acting." He then defined, very clearly, illusion, 
delusion, and hallucination ; classified insanity, on 
the basis of the principal manifestations, into 
mania, with its subdivisions of acute, subacute, 
paroxysmal, and chronic, melancholia of all grades 
and dementia, epilepsy with dementia or mania, 
general paresis, delirium tremens, and imbecility. 
'' These classes," he stated, ^ embrace all the pos- 
sible manifestations of insanity." 

He drew the distinction between actual disease 
of the mind and mere demoralization of character, 
insisting that insanity was "• in all instances the 
offspring of disease." He disclaimed all belief in 
" moral insanity " in the following well-digested 
argument : " Moral insanity is intended to signify 
a condition of perversion of the moral faculties or 
moral character of the individual, leaving the in- 
tellectual faculties still sound. Inasmuch as I, in 
my own view, cannot conceive of any moral act or 
the exercise of any moral affection without an in- 
tellectual operation or mental action accompanying 
it, so I cannot possibly dissever this mental unity. 
I look upon man, in his mental condition, as being 
a simple unit; that his mental being consists of his 



TWO HARD CASES. 197 

intellectual and moral faculties so united that ev- 
erything he does must spring out of them jointly. 
Disease is a thing of. the body ; a sickness of the 
l)rain, if it is msauity. No physical sickness could 
reflect itself through a man's moral nature only." 

Having thus exactly defined and limited his insan- 
ity, Dr. Gray comes down to tlie case, first giving 
very fully the detailed account of his interviews with 
Guiteau at the jail the week previous to the trial, 
with notes of conversation then held with the pris- 
oner. At these visits Guiteau seems to have told 
the doctor everything he desired to know about 
liis past life and his motives of action. Much of 
this was essentiall}^ what has already been given 
in these outlines, including the statement, which 
was first drawn out by the doctor in these inter- 
views, that if he had received the Paris consulship 
any time before his mind was fully made to the 
deed he would have taken it and orone. Another 
important point, I believe not elsewhere brought 
out, that he said during the two last weeks in May, 
wdien he was deliberatino- on the shootino- and 
making up his mind, he slept and ate well and felt 
well; that he slept well on the night of May 16, 
after the inception of the idea; also, that his defense 
would be legal insanity. He said, " I knew from 
the time I conceived the act, if I could establish 
the act before a jury that I believed the killing 



198 TWO HARD CASES. 

was ail inspired act, I conld not be held to respon- 
sibility before the law." Further on, on the same 
subject, he sa3^s, '• I cannot state just what time it 
came up in form, but it was latent, as a part of my 
general knowledge on the subject. I want you to 
put in the idea that it was the Deity ; for this is 
my only defense." The matter of inspiration Dr 
Gray went over very carefully, showing that it was 
the inspiration that Guiteau had learned from liis 
father and in the Community ; and in the matter of 
the second coming, that the inspiration was on the 
single point of fixing the date at A. d. 70. Also 
this, at the time of the shooting: " Let me ask you 
again about your plans for personal safety : you 
kept tliat in mind as well as the defense ? " "I 
thought it all over, for I gave my mind and time to 
it." " Why did n't you take your chances, if it was 
the Deity?" " With a mob? I knew what a mob 
would do. It would create the greatest excitement." 
The doctor learned that he had always enjoyed 
good health, had received no serious injury, and, 
aside from malaria, had been well in jail. There 
was very much more of this examination, but it is 
perhaps not necessary to quote it further. On the 
strength of his observations the doctor formed the 
o[)inion at the time he was making the examination 
that Guiteau was sane ; assigning the following 
reasons : — 



TWO HARD CASES. 199 

" In looking over the history of the prisoner, as 
given to me by himself, and considering his phys- 
ical health through life, first, I can see no evidence 
at any period through his life when he has been 
insane, or has had any symptoms of insanity. 
Coming down to the period of his arrival in Wash- 
ington, on the 5th of March, he v^as in good 
health, and he came for the purpose of applying 
for an office ; that during that time, down to the 
killing of the President, he continued in good 
health ; said he had not even had a headache or 
any evidences whatever of any physical disturb- 
ance. He followed up his efforts to obtain an of- 
fice, as he informed me, persistently, and in the 
manner [Dr. Gray is something of a humorist] 
which he himself thought best to secure it, by per- 
sonal application. He claimed no inspiration, or 
no insanity of any kind, in answer to my questions 
touching that matter, at that period. I took into 
consideration, in forming my opinion, his statement 
that this inspiration which he claimed, or press of 
Deity, did not come to him at the time of the in- 
ception of the act, and not until after he had fully 
made up his mind to do the act ; also that, during 
this time in which he was considering the question, 
he held in abeyance his own act, his own intention. 
He controlled his own will ; he controlled his own 
thoughts, reflections, and intention to do or not to 



200 TWO HARD CASES. 

do the act, pending the obtaining of the consul- 
ship. And the presence in him of reason, judg- 
ment, reflection, and self-control in regard to his 
act controlled me in forming my opinion ; also, 
the fact that he. controlled himself as to the time 
in which he should do this act of violence : all of 
which, in the light of my experience with insane 
persons who have the delusion that they are con- 
trolled, or directed, or commanded, or inspired by 
the Almighty, would be entirely inconsistent. Such 
self-control, self-direction, and self-guidance is an- 
tagonistic to anything I have ever seen in my per- 
sonal experience in connection with the insane, 
having such a delusion as a command of God, or a 
pressure of God upon them, or an inspiration. I 
took into consideration, also, in that same connec- 
tion, the fact of his providing carefully for his own 
safety and protection after the act, — preparing be- 
forehand, before he had committed the act, deliber- 
ately, for his own preservation. In the light of 
my experience with insane persons of that class, 
laboring under such insane delusions, there would 
be no preparation for personal safety, and no 
thought of personal safety. 

" Also, the fact that he stated to me that he rec- 
ognized his mental condition as one of insanity ; 
that he recognized this which he claimed as insanity 
under the terms of pressure of the Deity and in- 



TWO HARD CASES. 201 

spiration beforehand ; and he stated to me that he 
had looked further into that matter, and had con- 
sidered in connection with it that it was a defense, 
and a defense which he would make after he had 
committed tlie act. 

" Those circumstances and statements are utterly 
inconsistent with anything in the nature of insanity 
that I have ever experienced or observed in con- 
nection with any act of violence towards an indi- 
vidual, and especially in connection with any case 
where there is a profound delusion that they are 
under the command of God ; and in that connec- 
tion, the fact, in my experience, that insane persons 
who 'have the insane delusions that they are under 
command of God, or under inspiration, or under 
any pressure of God to do anything, in every case 
have been the most profound!}^ insane persons, in- 
dependent of the delusion mentioned. That such a 
delusion is itself a symptom or an evidence of a 
profound insanity existing and pervading the whole 
nature of the man, the condition which the [)risoner 
described to me, and of which I have spoken, was 
entirely inconsistent with any such idea. In con- 
sidering whether this was or could be an insane de- 
lusion, those circumstances were taken into consid- 
eration, and then the fact that when persons recog- 
nize a delusion as an insane delusion in themselves, 
and claim that the delusion is evidence of insanity, 



202 TWO HARD CASES. 

they cannot be insane. That must be assumed. 
No man who has such a delusion and is insane rec- 
ognizes himself as anything but sane, or recognizes 
that delusion as anything but an evidence of his 
sanity. Whenever he recognizes it as a delusion, 
and as a false belief, and as a false conception in 
his own mind, and reasons upon it, he ceases to be 
an insane man. I took into consideration also the 
deliberation with which he proceeded, as well as 
the change of purpose, from time to time, which he 
manifested. Those are the main reasons which I 
had for considering his state of mind previous to 
the killing. I found him in jail, in good physical 
health. He talked clearly. He had clear views 
U])on everything which he stated to me, and an- 
swered readily and quickly. There was perfect 
■coherence in every utterance which he made to me, 
whether they were upon any general subject, or 
specially in regard to himself, and therefore I 
formed my opinion, from all these reasons, that he 
was at that time a sane man." The doctor then 
went on at length to speak of cases of homicide by 
insane persons, where the person committing the 
act had come under his observation. Heredity and 
hereditary tendency to disease were exphuned. 
" Outside the direct line, no heredity is to be in- 
ferred." After answerin<i[, in regard to his obser- 
vation of the prisoner in the court-room, that he 



TWO HARD CASES. 203 

was sane, admitting his inability to answer the 
hypothetical question that had been submitted by 
the defense, he answered promptly the two hypo- 
thetical questions for the government that he was 
sane. Finally, on being asked to state to the jury 
the reasons that forced him to the conclusion, as a 
professional man, that the prisoner was sane, he 
said : — 

'•I will have to include the general reasons that 
I have already given in regard to his condition, and 
the additional fact that in the entire hypothetical 
case, which is presented as a whole, or as to any of 
its parts, there are no evidences of any insanity. 
Furthermore, in observing the conduct and speech 
of the prisoner in the court-room during the trial, 
his frequent interruptions, urging that he was in- 
sane, that this was a pressure of the Deity, that the 
responsibility was on the Deity ; his declarations, 
also constantly repeated, that he acted under inspira- 
tion, that it was a political necessity, and in other 
instances that it was done by the doctors, — that 
the President's death was due to the doctors. The 
same thing as to pressure and the Deity was 
13ressed upon me when I w^as examining him in the 
jail ; also that I must bear in mind that it was not 
his act ; that it was the act of the Deity ; that that 
was his defense. The fact that there is no disease, 
that there is no trace of the development or the ex- 



204 TIVO HARD CASES. 

istence of any delusion or hallucination, — all these, 
together with the reasons that I have already given, 
show, to my mind, in the light of my experience 
with the insane, that he is a sane man, and not an 
insane man." In the court, " I believe he is acting 
a part ; that he is representing wliat he tliinks 
and believes will impress others with the idea that 
he had an inspiration, or that he was acting under 
the influence of the Deity. I do not believe that 
he believes any such thing, and in tliat respect he 
is feigning. Such conduct and speech, in my judg- 
ment, from ray experience, are utterly inconsistent 
with tlie idea of insanity, and especially of an in- 
sanity in which there exists any delusion of a com- 
mand of God, or of a pressure of God, or of any in- 
fluence of any kind derived from the Deity." 

I have given Dr. Gray's conclusion in full in jus- 
tice to him, and because I think it states very com- 
pletely the argument on that side of the case. 
The cross-examination began by drawing out from 
the doctor the very creditable fact that he knew of 
no case where he had ever pronounced a sane man 
insane, or an insane man sane ; also his change of 
views in regard to moral insanity, based on experi- 
ence. He further stated that insanity is never in- 
herited as a disease. The doctor did not make the 
error which some of the ex[)erts did in saying that 
no disease was inherited, lie said, '' Kleptomania is 



TWO HARD CASES. 205 

a word used to express tliieving ; there is no such 
insanity. ' Dipsomania,' I call it drunkenness ; I do 
not call it insanity at all." " Pyromania, incendia- 
rism — crime. All these terms are make-shifts to 
secure from punishment for crime." '' I do not be- 
lieve in emotional insanity." The examination was 
continued to considerable length, but this must suf- 
fice, for the growing pages of these outlines warn 
me to be brief. 

As, listening to Dr. Gray, I sat there, almost the 
last of that long line of now vanished experts, 
who for weeks had occupied those seats, I could 
not help asking myself, Wherein is this new enu- 
meration of " all the possible manifestations of in- 
sanity," with its convenient eliminations, to be pre- 
ferred to the old ? It is Gray now, but it was 
Ray then ; and I wondered if that mental giant 
could come back from the sliore where he has so 
lately gone to sleep, if we should not hear some 
such vigorous English as this : You cannot get rid 
of a fact by denying its existence. 

That is the difficulty, as I conceive, with Dr. 
Gray's insanity ; he simplities our psychological 
studies wonderfully ; but what are we to do with 
those '* minds diseased," which his classification leaves 
out to shift for themselves ? We must still keep 
the bounds of insanity essentially where they were; 
or, if we narrow them with Dr. Gray, we must set 



206 TWO HARD CASES. 

up another kingdom in disease, and call that un- 
soundness of mind. Yet the doctor admits imbe- 
cility, which may or may not be congenital ; but he 
shuts out idiocy, fearing perhaps that, admitting, 
he might let in, tlie moral idiot. But if insanity is 
to include all the clinically observed forms of dis- 
ease that we have been accustomed to class as men- 
tal, and is to be regarded as synonymous with un- 
soundness of mind, then we must allow that this 
perverted condition of the intelligence that we call 
insanity, which is manifested in the thoughts, feel- 
ings, and actions of the individual, may be depend- 
ent either upon organic disease, disordered action, 
defective formation, or imperfect development of 
the brain. 

I may agree with Dr. Gray in what he says so 
well about " moral insanity," and yet be willing 
to admit that those cases, of which the books re- 
cord so many, had a real clinical existence, while 
holding for myself that the disordered mind does 
not cease to be a unit, althoutjh the observed man- 
ifestations of its insanit}'^ may seem to be con- 
fined, in some cases, to the emotions ; in others, to 
the affections ; and in still others, to the intellect- 
ual powers. We cannot deny that the old masters 
were as keen-sighted observers as ourselves. I dis- 
like to hear drunkenness called dipsomania, as I so 
often do ; but I do not therefore say that dipso- 



TWO HARD CASES. 207 

mania is only drunkenness. It might improve my 
stiinding with the legal fraternity if I should pro- 
nounce kleptomania only another name for steal- 
ing ; but my personal observation convinces me that 
the insane have sometimes a disposition to steal, 
wliicli is a direct result of their disease, and for 
which they are no more accountable than the puer- 
peral maniac is for her oaths. 

And now, after all these years of careful re- 
search, and our asylum reports rendered bulky 
with long tables prepared with so much care, in- 
volving inquiry for the origin of the disease not 
alone iu the direct family line, but in the collateral 
branches also ; just wlien the medical profession 
has come to believe if one fact iu medical science 
is better established than another, it is that in- 
sanity is hereditary, and we undertake, in the 
present case, to look up the hereditary predisposi- 
tion, and the family disposition likewise, we are 
met with the withering conundrum, " Can a man 
inherit insanity from his uncle ? " and we are tohl 
that there is no such thing as hereditary insanity. 
Yes, gentlemen, I understand you : the tendency to 
the disease is inherited. And so, as I have said, in 
the strict use of lanoruasre there is no such thincr as 
insane delusion ; but we know that language is sel- 
dom used with scientific exactness, and no one is at 
a loss to understand what we mean when we say 



208 TWO HARD CASES. 

that Jones is full of insane delusions, insanity being 
hereditary in his family. Yes, and if Jones should 
many an insane woman the chances are good that 
Jones's son will turn out crazy, no matter how 
carefully he may be brought up under the direction 
of the most eminent psychist ; for that little germ 
which you call " a tendency," so minute that it will 
elude your most careful scrutiny with scalpel and 
microscope, is a fixed fact, and will prove more po- 
tent than all your theories. Not born there ; de- 
velops.. Ah, how is it that science shows us that 
syphilis and small-pox and tubercle are born in 
the offspring ; that the infant comes into the world 
with spina bifida, idiotic, hydrocephalic, acephalic ; 
that the child is blind and mute and misshapen in 
his mother's womb, but is never insane ? Because, 
forsooth, we have seen fit to limit insanity to disease 
of the brain, and disease is not inherited ! Is it 
possible that in all these years it has not been the 
doctor's lot, as it has mine, to be consulted about 
those "queer" children of insane parentage, who 
are perverse from the start ? Will he say that the 
perverseness is only " badness," which should be 
whipped out of the child ? But that has generally 
been thoroughly tried before the physician is con- 
sulted. Heterodox I know it is, but observed facts 
compel me to be heterodox with Prichard and Es- 
quirol and Ray, with Morel and Griesiuger and 



T]r(f iiAun CASKS. -JD'j 

IMiiudsIi'v, and I know not how many others, in 
rt'Coi;niziii<j; in some cases a condition iidicixnf, 
l)«>rn in the individual, and not a result of educa- 
tion, — a condition which writers have recognized 
under various names as hereditary mental dii^order, 
insane diathesis, insane temperament. But the 
ditriculty is not in tlie nomenclature, hut in getting 
scientific observers, our leaders in psychiatry, to 
recognize the fact as it exists. 

With the fundamental position that insanity, in 
all cases, presupposes active cerebral disease, and 
that congenital defect can have nothing to do with 
it, the doctor comes down to his study of (^iuiteau's 
case, and finds that he has had no sickness in all 
Ids life. No sickness ? Then no brain disea'-^e. This 
is conclusive if a man's brain was always open to 
himself to see whether it was sick or not ; but 
fevers and rheumatism and neuralgia are diseases 
that a man knows, and rememliers when he has had 
them, but this sickness of the brain that goes along 
■with insanity is sometimes sueli a little sickness 
that he does not know it. 

While I am disposed to claim a congenital origin 
for Guiteau's insanity, — for I believe his egotism 
an<l want of common sense are born in hitn, — I 
could, safely enough for the argument, abandon that 
i;roun<l, and allow that the change in his views, in 
his fei'linirs. and, in a n)ea8ure, in the conduct of 
14 



210 TWO HARD CASES. 

bis life, which came over him while at school in 
Ann Arbor, and was, at all events, the develop- 
ment pi a more active phase of his insanity, was 
the whole, and tlien ask how much more phys- 
ical sickness, how much greater change, is needed. 
What expert in insanity, of half the long experi- 
ence of Dr. Gray, has not seen many, many cases, 
es|)ecially those where hereditary predisposition 
exists, unfolding delusion, mania, and violence, 
even, without any observed bodily illness, other 
than the febrile disturbance consequent upon the 
excitement; and where the development has been 
gradual and with less marked excitement, no bodily 
illness that either the patient or his friends ob- 
served ? How many such cases, become chronic, 
are to-day busy about the different hospitals through- 
out the land, with never a dose of medicine, or sick 
a day in their lives ? 

It was perfectly legitimate for Dr. Gray, appear- 
ing as the medical advocate and expert for the 
])rosecution, to draw the strong contrast between 
Guiteau while claiming inspiration, dehning his 
action, holding his plan in abeyance, changing it, 
providing for his escape from vengeance at the 
hands of the mob, reasoning about what his defense 
would be, etc., and the observed manifestations 
in those cases among the insane, usually in acute 
or paroxysmal mania or melancholia, where a sup- 



TWO HARD CASES. 211 

posed inspiration or coinmaiid from God inipcds 
them on tlieir victim. It was legitimate, because 
Mr. Scoville liad set tliat up as a defense, and, 
having cliosen his ground, lie had no right to c(jm- 
phiin that the doctor, as an advocate, met him on 
a field of his own selection. 

But not taking sides, appearing only in tlie 
character of ''amicus curiie," it would have been 
his duty to point out to the court and the jury 
wheiein the so-called inspiration of Guitcau — a 
mere matter of life-long education of a mind whicli, 
sane or insane, was controlled directly by the po- 
litical situation, and if insane, tlie insanity was 
chronic in type — was necessarily very different 
from the inspiration whicli came as the control- 
ling delusion in those acute types of insanity to 
Avliich this had been compared ; and, also, to show 
wherein tlie actions and reasoning of tiie insaiui 
person holding sucli ideas of inspiration might, 
and j)robal)ly would, differ widely from what had 
been observed in tlie cases citetl ; tliat in the 
chronic forms of insanity, such deliberation and 
arrangements for safety are by no means unknown ; 
and that a so-called reasoning maniac often ph)ts 
and studies and arranges tlie niinutiiu of his ])lans, 
until he startles a community by tlie magnitude of 
the crime that he has secretly developed out of ids 
delusions. 



212 TWO HARD CASES. 

In Guiteau's case the inspiration is a fact of his 
education, and only a delusion in the sense in which 
any idea of an insane mind may become delnsiv^e 
by its surroundings. The insane man's world, 
motives, and thoughts are other than ours ; and 
when Guiteau took up his insane view of the 
political situation, which was probably his con- 
trolling delusion in this act, he then, by the 
reasoning process of his disordered mind, con- 
vinced himself that the Deity was with him ; that 
his inspiration, in the sense in which he under- 
stands that term, a pressure, a conviction, was 
behind his view of the political situation. Such 
delusive ideas are not as clear-cut and satisfactory 
for demonstration as those where the Divine com- 
mand is spoken from the air ; but, of a score of in- 
sane men taken at random in a hospital, how many 
will have, dissociated from all other ideas, the 
clear-cut delusion for which you are seeking? 

Again, when Dr. Gray gave that powerful sum- 
ming up, namel}^, " Such self-control, self-direction, 
and self-iTuidance is antaiijonistic to anvthinaj I have 
ever seen in connection with the insane, having 
such a delusion as a command of God, or a press- 
ure of God upon them, or an inspiration," we are 
certain that he is still thinking of this same active 
type of homicidal cases. But if his attention 
could have been called to that very considerable 



TWO HARD CASES. 213 

class of the insane who, under tlie delusion of a 
Divine command, or, what would more nearly par- 
allel Guiteau's case, the conviction of a religious 
training, have made or attempted assaults on them- 
selves, who can doubt that the doctor, out of his 
ripe experience of more than thirty years, would 
have been able to recall, not one, but very many 
cases, where the conviction of religious duty acting 
directly on an insane mind prompted, or the voice 
mistaken for God's call whispered, to take cord oi 
knife; and with marvelous "self-control," with 
complete "self-direction" and resolute " self-guid- 
ance," they held in abeyance their act and their 
will, wavered in purpose, arranged all the details, 
changing the plan as the circumstances may have 
rendered necessary, and at last, when all the sur- 
roundings were favorable, took, or attempted to take, 
tlie fatal step. My experience of something more 
tlian twenty years recalls many such cases; and had 
the doctor seen fit to favor us by opening the store- 
house of his memory, going back nearly ten years 
beyond mine, T am sure that the poverty of my illus- 
ti-ation would have been made rich with the abound- 
ing resources of his own. I anticipate the doctor's 
objection, that this is another type of insanity, and 
tlie " Divine pressure " acting in another direction ; 
but that is precisely the point I have been trying 
to make against his comparison in Guiteau's case. 



214 • TWO HARD CASES. 

If that argument is good in the one instance, it 
certainly shoukl be in the other. 

Once more, — and this must suffice, — Dr. Gray 
says, '' When persons recognize a delusion as an in- 
sane delusion in themselves, and claim that the de- 
lusion is evidence of insanity, they cannot be insane. 
That must be assumed. No man who has such de- 
lusion, and is insane, recognizes himself as anything 
but sane." Setting aside those cases where an in- 
sane man feigns insanity, this is sound argument ; 
but it has no application to this case. Guiteau told 
Dr. Gray, — and lest he should forget it the doctor 
wrote it down in his note-book, — "I don't claim 
to be insane as a medical man would judge what is 
ordinarily called insanity, but legal insanity." He 
said to General Reynolds, " The idea of General 
Logan saying I was insane! I am not more insane 
than he is." To me, that he had told me the truth 
when he said that he was not insane. So far as I 
now remember, he told everybody the same story : 
that he was not insane. But he also told me and 
everybody, told it with the confiding trust of a 
little child to anybody who chanced to ask him, 
that his defense would be legal insanity, going into 
all the details of his argument. But it was not his 
belief ; it was a mere intellectual study, foolish, 
crazy enough. But he never pretended to believe 
in it as a medical fact ; he only believed it would 



TWO HARD CASES. 215 

be unanswerable to a lawyer. Poor fool, and yet 
presenting to Dr. Gray no evidence of insanity ! I 
wonder if the man's conversation with me could 
really have been so different from what it was with 
liim, or if the trouble was that 1 could not keep my 
eyes resolutely closed to that side of his character. 
I was introduced to him simply as a friend of the 
warden, interested in his case, and 1 warned him at 
the outset to answer no question that he did not 
desire to answer, nor tell me anything that he pre- 
ferred not to say ; and then that man went on to 
give me the details of his life, the minutiiii of his 
plotting and his deliberate crime, — everything that 
ought to hang him if sane ; told it without urging, 
— told it for the most part with the calm apparent 
impartiality with which he might have described a 
scene where he was merely a spectator. I knew 
he had told all this to the district attorney with 
the same detail before ; but then, as he conveyed 
to me in a half whisper, that he might not be heard 
ill the adjoining room, he believed Colonel Cork- 
hill was a stalwart. I think he really wanted to 
tell it, to have me, to have the world, know just 
how it was. I was a stranger to him, but if you 
sit down with an insane man whom you never saw 
until that moment, and engage him in conversation, 
and show an interest in what he says, as a rule he 
will go on and tell you the whole story which is so 



216 TWO HARD CASES. 

important from his stand-point. Like the wedding 
guest in the " Ancient Mariner," unless you are 
rude, you " cannot choose but hear," and it seems 
as tliough it was true of the insane man as of that 
Ancient Mariner, — 

" And till my ghastly tale is told 
This heart witliiu me burns." 

Altogether I must have talked, or for the most 
part listened, to Guiteau for more than six hours. 
It seemed to me that I had heard it before, not the 
identical story, but the talk sounded strangely fa- 
miliar. At that time, in September, I think he 
had come to expect his trial would take place, but 
the plea of legal insanity would provide for tlint. 
Of course the trial was a thino; to be met and irot 
over some way ; but, as it seemed to me, a matter 
of much greater importance to his mind was his 
vindication with the American people. The suffer- 
ings of the President in his lingering death had 
touched the hearts and sympathies of everybody, 
but now, after they read his statement in the New 
York " Herald," they would see that he had no per- 
sonal ill will towards the President ; would recog- 
nize the political situation, and understand the ne- 
cessity for his removal and the inspiration. lie was 
a theologian and a politician. He said he was 
" God's man," and he showed that he felt, though 
he did not say it to me, that he was also the great 



TWO HARD CASES. 217 

American patriot. lie said I slioiild see a cljaniie in 
public sentiiiient soon ; that it was cluingin^' already. 
The situation had so impressed him that he ap- 
peared sure that everybody else would see it as he 
did when the facts were known. " The jireat Amer- 
ican people," who were that very moment ready to 
turn out almost to a man to lynch him, was, I hon- 
estly believe, the court of appeal to which he was 
then lookinii: thev w^ere in his thouHits ; he rested 
back on them all through his trial, while his eyes 
are still turned in that direction, as his reproduc- 
tion in his latest book. " The Truth and the Re- 
moval," of very many foolish letters from the sov- 
ereign people, shows. Why ? Not simplj^ nor 
mainly because he is a fool, but because he still 
believes in the inspiration of the political situation. 
That his insanity has a blind side, that he lacks 
common sense in some directions, I have no doubt. 
Mr. Davidge, who seemed to understand his weak- 
ness better than the other prosecuting lawyers, 
generally approached him from that side, and 
could do about as he had a mind to with him in his 
interruptions during the trial. His credulity would 
be touching, if it were not so ludicrous. It is only 
necessary to speak pleasantly to him and hear him 
patiently, and you are " his friend " and " a good 
fellow." The government stenographer obtained 
ever\thin<r he wanted from him with the "thin" 



218 TWO HARD CASES. 

plan of a life in the New York " Herald." He gave 
his case away to " a frieiul " in the guise of the 
district attorney, — for there was no concealment, 
— who was certain to do his best to convict him ; 
but he could not see this, because he was born 
blind, and you turn away a blind man from the 
ditch on one side of the road, and he will fall into 
the gutter on the other. 

His letter to Senator Cameron during the trial 
asking a loan, his correspondence with an heiress, 
the great importance that he appears to attach to 
the foolish letters which he prints in his book, may 
all be the frauds of a desperate criminal, hoping 
thereby to influence opinion in his case ; but I 
believe they are part and parcel of his credulity, 
which has aj^peared in so many other ways. The 
heiress of the Austrian mission he told me was a 
lady he had seen at a Sunday-school in New York ; 
that he had seen her several times, was without in- 
troduction or speaking acquaintance, but her ap- 
pearance had convinced him that she would have 
married him if he had received the mission. Of 
course there may liave been no truth in this, but it 
is singularly like those matrimonial alliances that 
are constantly being formed in cracked brains as 
we meet them in hospitals. I know his friends be- 
lieve he was in earnest about the imaginary heir- 
ess, whose letters he has received in jail. 



TWO HARD CASES. 219 

AYhen I was introduced to him as a friend of 
General Crocker, he came to be curious about me, 
asked his guard in respect to the appearance of one 
of the judges on the supreme bench of the district, 
and having decided that I was certainly that person, 
towards the close of mj next visit he accosted me 
as Judge, giving that gentleman's name ! I smiled, 
flattered, of course, at having been mistaken for so 
distinguished a person, and was about to speak, 
when he, certain from my smile that he was right, 
said, "I am ghid, Judge, that you have taken pains 
to come to see me, and I hope you will try my 
case." It would have been wrong to allow him to 
deceive himself further, and I frankly stated to him 
my name and position. His face showed his real 
disappointment. Hoped I would try his case ! And 
this was a lawyer whose experience in the ways 
of courts and the duties of judges was not con- 
fined to Chicago, but " late of ^^ew York," and 
Boston, — a lawyer whose fundamental law had so 
recently evolved his unanswerable defense of le- 
gal insanity, untrammeled by the medical form ; 
who, when Dr. Gray was trying to have him locate 
the formulation of this remarkable defense in his 
mind as something prior to the shooting, with a 
vanity which would not allow there was anything 
but what he had thought out and mastered, said he 
" could not state just what time it came up in form, 



220 TWO HARD CASES. 

but it was latent, a part of his general knowledge 
on the subject." Between his egotism and his cre- 
dulity he will stumble into any pitfall. This judi- 
cial mind saw no impropriety, no absurdity, in the 
eminent judge leaving his court-room to make a 
study of the prisoner in the jail, receiving the evi- 
dence from his own lips in the case that he was after- 
wards to try from the bench ! Such legal knowl- 
edge is at best "general," and in the main ''latent." 
Indeed, when you find a man like this to be perfectly 
sane, it is worth your while to take a long look at 
him, as you mwy not chance to meet such another, 
even " in a summer's day." But the evidence is in; 
" The case must be closed," said Mr. Davidge. 
"Yes," added Mrs. Scoville, sadly, "and the man 
must hang." 

Mr. Davidge rose to open the closing argument 
for the government : well known and universally 
respected here as among tlie foremost at the Wash- 
ington bar ; a ripe, scholarly man, thoroughly at 
home in his profession, in the contour of whose head 
and in the lines of whose genial countenance you 
trace a certain resemblance to the picture of the first 
president, without the formal stiffness which the 
painters have contrived to give to that historic face. 

Calmly and impressively, though still suffering 
from illness, he outlined before them the man and 
his crime, the gradual growth of the terrible pur- 



TWO HARD CASES. 221 

pose, analyzing the motives that entered into its 
composition. He had argued the law points on a 
previous day. He now reviewed the testimony for 
the defense, frittering it away, bit by bit, showing 
how far it fell short of establishing that insanity 
which would be a defense of crime. He showed 
how the defense had been driven to abandon Mr. 
Scoville's "" fool theory," with which they had 
started, and how, as a forlorn hope, they had 
been compelled to place the prisoner himself on 
the stand, in an unavailing effort to establish his 
claim for inspiration. He dwelt long, recurring to 
it again and again, on the " iron standard " of 
the law of insanity which the court had set up in 
this case, the knowledije of rioht and wroncr in rela- 
tion to the act in question ; in his fervor not always 
remembering to include the latter qualification ; that 
a man might be eccentric, have peculiar religious 
beliefs, might be " off his balance," miglit be " a 
crank," and yet be fully responsible in the eye 
of the law. So of this man of the one-sided face, 
" whose asymmetry is in his soul." 

It is impossible in this merest tracing of his speech 
to do anything like justice to the beauty of his dic- 
tion, the strength of his argument, or the impregna- 
bility of his legal position. He seemed to me to 
have accepted in his own mind the conclusion that 
the man was somewhat wrong in his head, but 



222 TWO HARD CASES. 

thoroughly responsible for his crime. Perhaps I 
do him an injustice, but that was the way it sounded 
in my ears as I heard him. 

He made many very effective points, and only 
one mistake : that was when, disclaiming to apolo- 
gize for, he still spoke of, the mob as always hav- 
ing ""behind it the highest forms of human passion 
and human sentiment." His diction was at all 
times rich with allusions and poetry, — the " hands 
incarnadine," " the Divinity which doth hedge in a 
king." Tiie speech blossoms all over with the flow- 
ers of his rhetoric, that are yet pregnant with 
meaning. 

A single sentence must suffice to illustrate : '' This 
man. without intelligence, you understand, who had 
intelligence enough, as this terrible flower was un- 
folding its petals, to give his victim a chance. He 
went on balancing the conception. He received no 
reply, and on the 1st of June he made up his mind 
that he would put out that little light, that nobody 
in this world can ever relight, — the light of life. 
He made up his mind that he would break down that 
partition." This is only one of very many such pas- 
sages, and when alluding to the pity for Mrs. Gar- 
field that saved the President on the 18th of Ju?ie, 
and expressing the hope that there might have been 
in the heart of this demon a transitory compassion, 
akin to that which rose to the lips of Macbeth, on 



TWO HARD CASES. 223 

his way to the clianiber to murder Duncan, he re- 
cited that passage of Sliakespeare, comuiencing, 

"Besides, this Duncan 
Hath borne his faculties so meek," — 

it had such dramatic and tlirilliug effect that, at the 
close of iiis speech, the great actor Rossi, who was 
present, rushed from his seat to congratulate him. 

Coming down to the prisoner's own testimony, he 
ruthlessly dissected his claim to inspiration, and at 
last, gathering up all the cumulative facts that were 
brought out in the testimony of General Reynolds 
into one bolt, which he hurled with crushing effect 
at the prisoner, he sat down, without peroration be- 
yond the statement that " their countrymen and 
Christendom were waiting for their verdict." 

Mr. Reed followed for the defense. He was the 
youngest lawyer in the case. He had unquestioned 
ability; had also the thorough training of twelve 
years as state's attorney in Chicago. He had come 
into tlio case, originally, as a witness for Guiteau. 
He had known Guiteau for years, believed in lils 
insanity, and seeing INIr. Scoville left alone in the 
case, ignorant of criminal law, fighting manfully 
where at the best the odds were fearfully against 
him, as one by one the great criminal lawyers who 
had been appealed to for aid declined to come for- 
ward, he had thrown himself into the arena, a kind 



224 TWO HARD CASES. 

of kiiight-eiTaut for fair play. His speed) was tlie 
shortest in the argument, but not the less effective 
on that account. 

After complimenting the jury on their patient 
endurance, and a side compliment to Mr. Davidge 
for spending two days trying to convince them tliat 
the testimony for the defense was "• mere trash," 
when, if there was no suspicion in their minds that 
this poor man was a lunatic, ten minutes was 
enough, he proceeded to parallel this case with that 
of Hatfield shooting at the king, Oxford at the 
queen, and Lawrence's attempt to take the life of 
President Jackson. 

Very soon after opening he made an appeal to 
the jury in behalf of the doctrine of a reasonable 
doubt of the sanity of the man, and this was the 
key-note of his plea. He drew a graphic picture 
of a bo}^, silent till the age of six, from defect of 
mind ; then learning to talk, growing up a strange 
boy, but good, kind, affectionate, with no bad hab- 
its. Then, the ambition for an education awak- 
ened ; tlie prospects of his opening life, with liis 
school at Ann Arbor ; thence urged, almost forced, 
by his father into " that vestibule of hell, the 
Oneida Community." AVe are familiar with the 
story. He commented at length on the religious 
letters written from the Community. What sane 
man could have written such letters ? Did tiiey 



TWO HARD CASES. 225 

have a doubt of the state of tliat man's mind ? 
So he followed his life alonii, admittinir its de- 
pravity at times, — the result of disease. And 
ever and anon came the appeal for the reason- 
able doubt, — th-e father's letter, and John Gui- 
teau's belief in demoniac possession : and, with 
touching pathos, he shifted the scene to Galilee 
and those demon-possessed lunatics. " He healed 
the sick, among them those possessed of a devil, 
lunatics." "It was called a disease then. Your 
Saviour and mine called it a disease, and he healed 
them." lie states how, five years ago, the sister 
told her physician that her brother w^as insane, ap- 
pealing to him for aid ; and, in fitting phrase, he eu- 
logized the devotion of that sister, who, believing 
as she did, had sat by his side in all this trouble, 
when Mr. Davidge had said, " This family ought 
to ha-ve broken him off like a rotten limb, and cast 
him into the fire." Then he turned witii thrillinij 
effect to that encomium which had been pro- 
nounced on the mob, " representing the best of 
liuman passions and sentiments," and read how 
that mob eighteen hundred years ago cried, '* Cru- 
cify Him ! Crucify Him ! " 

Then, turning to the prisoner before them, he 

called attention to the insane gait with which, for 

weeks, he had shuffled past them ; the " wild light in 

his eye," that they needed no expert to show them. 

15 



226 TWO HARD CASES. 

Coming clown to the shooting, he urged the lack of. 
motive as proving insanity ; that a sane man would 
know that he would be torn in pieces at the depot, 
or shortly hanged. If he had a motive, he would 
have killed him the evening before. Then, the quiet 
sleep of the night following ; the insane expecta- 
tions that he revealed to General Reynolds. Then, 
a point he had overlooked, of the wild leap from the 
New Jersey express train. Another appeal for the 
one juror with the reasonable doubt. A picture of 
the closing scene, with the last look from the " same 
weary, wandering eye," and the prayer that they 
should " do that which shall not, in after-j^ears, 
bring a blush of shame to your cheeks." 

It was over. The reasonable doubt, so elo- 
quently urged, was solid ground on which the de- 
fense could stand now and hereafter. There was 
room for that, had the victim been an ordinary 
man. The call was for but one man, only one, and 
he was not found ; but along with the case will go 
down to after-time that knight of the white plume, 
still doing battle for the reasonable doubt. 

Whatever effect the sjaeech may have produced 
was dissipated by the irrepressible one, who broke 
the stillness with " Mr. Reed is a good fellow, but 
I would n't give a cent a bushel for his rubbish. 
If I get a chance at that jury, I will give them the 
theory to settle this case." Here was the last 



T]VO HARD CASES. 227 

chance for Guiteau, — to leave that jury, when the 
court adjourned, silently pondering the reasonable 
doubt, — '• and with a breath he blows it away." 
Scoville's fool theory was not so bad, after all. 

Mr. Scoviile followed, and spoke for five days. 
The burden of almost the entire labor of defense 
had devolved on him from the first. The trial was 
entering upon its tenth week, when he commenced 
his speech. It has been suggested that he pi-o- 
longed his argument in order, by the limitation of 
time, to carry the execution of the sentence over 
another teim of the court ; but as Mr. Davidge 
occupied two and Judge Porter nearly three days, 
and then closed before he had concluded all that he 
originally intended to say, it is reasonable at least, 
that Mr. Scoviile, unfamiliar as he w^as with crimi- 
nal law, found it impossible to go over the whole 
ground in less time than he took ; indeed, as it was, 
he left his argument unfinished. There is a limit 
to the power of human endnrance, and the w^onder 
is, after three months of constant application and 
anxiety, day and night, in the conduct of this de- 
fense, in some respects the most difficult and em- 
barrassing on record, that he was able to stand up 
before that jury, day after day, and not fall ex- 
hausted with his labor. It is remarkable, not that 
he failed to cover all the ground he had mapped 
out, not that he omitted many things that he was 



228 TWO IIAIW CASES. 

expected to say, not that he said some things that 
would Ijave been better left unsaid, but that so 
much that he did say was said so well. In the nec- 
essarily restricted limits of these outlines, I shall 
not undertake to give even an analysis of his ad- 
dress. He opened by saying that he left oratory 
to the distinguished gentleman who was to follow 
him (Judge Porter), and asked only ''a fair, can- 
did consideration of the facts in the case by fair, 
candid men." 

His analj'^sis of the testimony, in which he dem- 
onstrated that he had made a careful study of its 
weak points, was exhaustive, but there was no end 
to it ; even the jury showed at last that it was not 
only exhaustive but exhausting, and the audience 
felt, when he said, at the opening of the aftei-noon 
session of the fifth day, " I am admonished that if 
I do not set my time, and come to a close in this 
case, I shall never get through," that he had not 
overestimated the perils of the situation. 

I think Mr. Scoville believed that he had been 
unfairly treated by the prosecution in the trial, and 
he said some things bitterly. He criticised severely 
the district attorney's course with the prisoner 
at the jail following the shooting, and his dic- 
tatorial manner in the court-room, saying that he 
had treated the witnesses for the defense " with all 
the domineering, overbearing condu(;t of a .lef- 



TWO HARD CASES. 229 

freys." He gave liis own study of Judge Porter's 
vanity and oratory, of course intended to weaken 
the effect of his eloquence with the jury in liis clos- 
ing argument, and so legitimate ; but he embittered 
it by saying, " Judge Porter has come here to 
"Washington, and prostituted his talent, his high at- 
tainments, for money, to hang an insane man/' which 
was not needed for his aignment. lie disclaimed 
oratory, but sometimes rose nearly to it, as when, in 
regard to the testimony of McElfresh, the officer 
who rode with Guiteau to the jail, which w^as ob- 
jected to in surrebuttal by the counsel as ''contrary 
to the rules of law," he says, " It is contrary to 
the rules of law ! AVas it contrary to the i)rinci[)les of 
eternal justice ? Was there anything in that that was 
improper for you to know, gentlemen of the jury, 
by which to make up your minds whether that man 
had been insane an hour before, at the dei)ot, when 
he fired the shot? " — an argument that would not 
be without weight in the impartial equity of history. 
Indeed, as day after day I listened to him, I 
thought I could see that, while he omitted noth- 
ing which he considered likely to make for the 
prisoner in tlie verdict, he had given up hope of 
anything, unless a possible doubtful juror, and 
that much which he said was spoken over their 
heads to posterity. lie was leaving the case there, 
in which he would still go down to after-time, and 



230 TIVO IT A ED CASES. 

he introduced many things which were hardly pol- 
itic to say in that court room, but things in whose 
truth he thoroughly believed, and which, when said, 
might stand as his protest, his exceptions, — not 
formally noted, — that would help to make up the 
argument at that tribunal of last appeal. Hence it 
was that he introduced his famous indictment for 
conspiracy to hang the prisoner, in wdiich he in- 
cluded the counsel for the government and five 
consulting expert witnesses; the first of his twenty 
counts of the indictment being, " That these gentle- 
men have perverted the facts in the case." For the 
same purpose of appeal he arraigned the American 
press and the journalism of the time for " antici- 
pating the processes and adjudication of the courts 
of law," and for their complaint that '' the course of 
American justice is too slow." He rebuked Judge 
Davis, of ]S^ew York, for having in his judicial po- 
sition " assumed to promulgate a decision from the 
bench there that is intended to influence the opin- 
ion or the decision of this court." 

And in this direction he reached his culminatinor 
point when he said, "I arraign before you, gentle- 
men, as those wdio are crowding this man to the 
gallows, persons high in authority. 

" I say, without fear, that the movers of this 
prosecution are those politicians who seek to hide 
their own infamy by casting the bhirae upon this 
insane man. 



TWO HARD CASES. 231 

" I say that such meu as Conkling and Grant 
and Arthur, those who made war without justifi- 
cation upon the dead President, whom thay have 
since lauded to the skies, instituted that state of 
things and manufactured that degree of public ex- 
citement and of popular feeling that preyed upon 
this insane man until reason left its throne, and 
he did that which he considered was perfectly 
in accordance with their counsels and their con- 
duct." 

All this looks far away from the present hour, 
appealing to him who shall hereafter dispassion- 
ately write the annals of our times. It is unde- 
niable that Mr. Scoville spoke too long ; his argu- 
ment is too diffuse ; could it have been condensed 
into two days, it would have carried more weight. 
I believe that much of his study of the feelings 
and motives of this man is correct, and will stand. 
Of his appeals to history we are obviously living 
too near to tlie facts in question to attempt to give 
an opinion which, if any, posterity will allow, and 
which it will overrule. 

Mr. Scoville's thankless task in this case, so 
bravely undertaken and carried through, is as 
creditable to his heart as his head ; and as a 
monument deserves to rai'lk with that round tower 
which the old Roman triumvir, Crassus, built so 
well that, after nigh two thousand years, it still 



232 TWO HARD CASES. 

tells the traveler what he did for the sake of 
Caecelia Metella. 

It was undeniable that the prisoner had a legal 
right to speak in his own behalf, and the court, 
after once refusing, granted his request. 

The morning of the 21st of January, 1882, 
dawned rainy and gloomy, but the court-room was 
more crowded than ever. The great day of the 
trial had come. Guiteau was to speak for his life. 
Curiosity was on tiptoe ; the only drawback the 
lovers of novelty in sensation felt was that Guiteau, 
having been in the first instance refused permission 
to speak, had, with his usual enterprise, printed his 
speech in the New York " Herald," so that most 
of the audience knew what he was to say. That, 
however, mattered but very little ; it was the man, 
and how he would appear, that most of the specta- 
tors came to see. " How do I look ? " was his 
question to the guard before entering the court- 
room. This man had not begun to realize the sit- 
uation, but he had come with " his show " to his 
benefit day, and he was anxious to present a " high- 
toned " appearance. 

He took his place in the witness-box, and, seating 
himself, adjusted his glasses, and at the intimation 
of the judge began to i^ad from his manuscript, 
''his theory of the defense." What would he have 
thought of such an audience in those days of the 



TWO HARD CASES 233 

lecturing tour, when the night was stormy and no- 
body came ? Well, stormy though it was, he had 
at last an audience large as his egotism could ask, 
and their attention to the close; and he? Tiie 
theme was an interesting one, — he could afford 
to fjive them the whole lecture. Thouirh I have 
heard more brilliant men, the addi'ess was the most 
thrilling to which I have ever listened; a kind of 
oratory that remains with you ever after, though 
the scenery had probably something to do with the 
dramatic effect. As the storm deepened without, 
the room grew dark, and the lamps brought in, 
while they shed a sickly light on the speaker's pale, 
smooth-shaven face, made the whole scene oidy 
more grewsome. I could see the shadow of the 
end falling over him, but he saw no such thing ; he 
saw the " chance at that jury, to give them the 
theory to settle this case." He was flattered by 
the attention of the audience; so many "high- 
toned" people, and for once the opportunity to do 
all the talking himself. Ilis voice was rather thin, 
but distinctly heard. lie did wonderfully well, for 
it was the one theme in which he was perfectly at 
home, — it was the only lecture of his that could 
ever "draw." 

But what was it ? The old story, a warp of 
nightmare woven with " shreds and patches : " 
his " Christmas Greeting," which had by his mis- 



234 TWO HARD CASES. 

take, which he now proceeded to rectify, crept into 
the New York " Herald " edition, with its original 
heading, a resume of his life, a rehash of his 
" Truth," and interruptions that had already done 
duty in the court-room, letters of sympathy that 
he had received, doggerel verses and paraphrases, 
quotations from the testimony and Scripture, — a 
strange jumble and medley ; and running through 
it all, and binding it into a sort of coherency, the 
threads of his delusion of a country saved by in- 
spiration, and the unanswerable plea of his legal 
insanity, " presented by the author." 

Of course, now, if ever, it behooved the watch- 
ful juror to look out for frauds at the hands of a 
man who could burnish an oroide watch equal to 
gold ; but when lie reached that passage, " Forget- 
ting the things behind, I pressed forward. I have 
no doubt as to my spiritual destiny. I have al- 
ways been a lover of the Lord, and whether I live 
one year or thirty," and the voice had begun to 
tremble, and he stopped, the lip quivered while 
the chin held it for a moment, the tear was 
stealing down the cheek before the head dropped, 
the handkerchief brushed it away, but he stifled 
it down as a weakness, and completed his sen- 
tence with "I am his," then I allowed that if it 
was acting it surpassed anything I had ever wit- 
nessed from Joseph Jefferson, and if he had aban 



TWO HARD CASES. 235 

doned theology for the stage, instead of politics, his 
fortune would liave been made. No, it was too 
real for actino-. That reliirious faith is real, though 
insane. 

Then tlie egotism rose, and the audience smiled 
over the presumption that he should live to be 
President. Possibly a joke ; but the next sen- 
tence told us that General Arthur was a good man 
every way. '• 1 happen to know him well ; I was 
with him constantly in New York during the can- 
vass." Then the tlieology rose again : " Tlie de- 
spised Galilean and his great apostle." The work 
done, and the result left to God. " I put up my 
life on the Deity's inspiration, and I have not come 
to grief yet, and I have no idea I shall, because I 
do not think I am destined to be shot or hunof. But 
that is a matter for the Deity to pass on, and not 
me. Whatever tlie mode of my exit from this 
world, I have no doubt but that my name and work 
will i-oll tliundering down the ages ; but woe to the 
men that kill me, privately or judicially." ''There 
is God and one man, in this case, on one side, and 
on the other the whole world against them ; but 
God and his man will prevail at last." 

But the egotism grows more audacious, and par- 
allels his vagabond life with Christ and St. Paul's, 
and then his evangel comes in : " My little book will 
go thundering down the ages, whatever becomes of 



236 TWO HARD CASES. 

my body." Then his debts and the sympalhy that 
a like weakness should give the district attorney. 
And he embraces the opi)oi'tnnity to embahii here 
the inseparable pamphlet of '' Garfield against Han- 
cock." "• I gave this speech to tlie leading stalwarts, 
and they were pleased with it. It liad a certain 
ring, and they noticed it." He alhides to the spe- 
cial providences that have saved his life from pistol 
and rifle balls ; how death might have found the 
President another way, — " a railroad accident, or 
slipped on an oi-ange peel and broken his neck." 
He recites a paraphrase of " Brutus, on the Death 
of CiJesar." He goes over Brooks's testimony and 
the inspiration, the Abrahamic style of insanity, 
the plea of transitory mania, a newspaper article 
on the Guiteau experts, letters and poems and ex- 
tracts from the prayers and discourses of eminent 
divines at the President's death, and then he rises 
into solemn warning and denunciation of those who 
would harm him. " For I tell you the truth, and 
lie not, when I say I am here as God's man." Ho 
takes up the slave-holders and John Brown's raid, 
and startling, yet ludicrous, his thin voice pipes 
out, — 

"John Brown's body lies mouldering in the ground; " 

when, discovering that his singing is not impressive, 
he finishes by reciting the rest of the stanza. 



rwu riAKD CASES. 237 

But eiioui^h : this is not agreeable readina-, and 
while it tlirilled and held the listener, it was not 
pleasant pasfime. I wondered, as ray eye ran over 
those listening jurors, whether some solitary mem- 
ber, who, perhaps, had known something personally 
about insanity, might not entertain a reasonable 
doubt whether Guiteau had not a dual nature, and 
Dr. Gray's sane man had somehow got mixed up 
with this lunatic ; but I supposed they would con- 
clude, as they evidently did, that tiiis was all put on 
for effect. 

Guiteau felt that this was a great success. He 
previously stated in court, in his modest fashion, 
when he feared that he would be cut off from de- 
livering his speech, that " it sounded like one of 
Cicero's orations, and would go thundering down the 
ages." But his day in court was passing, and though 
he would have gladly lingered longer on the word, 
supremely flattered as he was by all that pageant 
that was conductino^ him to his doom, thoui^h even 
then he could not recognize it, he came to the end ; 
and warning them not to '• get the Deity down on 
them," and urging that " it would be better every 
way that it be officially decided the act of a mad- 
man," in the presence of his greatest audience, 
folding the manuscript of what had been his most 
impressive discourse, Charles J. Guiteau left the 
lecture platform forever. 



238 TWO HARD CASES. 

The eleventh and last week of the trial opened 
with the closing argnment of Judge Porter. His 
legal reputation was already secure without this, 
which was to be the crowning eifort of his life. 
His fame at the Isew York bar had been long es- 
tablished, but the world knew him as the senior 
counsel for the defense in the famous Beecher trial. 
His life, even now turning towards age, had not lost 
its vigor. A pleasing face, a keen eye, a sonorous 
voice, and the pointing finger that enforced his 
thought ; a gentleman of the old school, politely 
bowing to the jury ; an ideal advocate from that 
generation which is passing away, he had come to 
aid the government in the vindication of the maj- 
esty of the law, and in this case of world-wide 
reputation to gather lanrels for a brow that, like 
Caesar's, had begun to need them. 

With all his suavity, he was somewhat dictatorial 
in manner, and once during the closing argument, 
when the court sustained an objection to his state- 
ment, he told the jury that he had "practiced law 
longer than his honor ; " and again during the trial, 
when he objected to a (juestion of Mr. Scoville's as 
"irreverent and blas[)hemous," as " a hypothetical 
question, put without foundation, which dishonors 
the memory of and the reverence due to the Re- 
deemer of mankind," and his honor decided that 
foundation had been laid for the question and over- 



TWO HARD CASES. 239 

ruled the objection, Judge Porter took Iiis appeal 
to history, and '' m behalf of the Americau gov- 
ernment and those they represent, protested against 
the decision passing into a precedent." Looking 
on, an observant spectator, I thought I could de- 
tect throughout the trial that both counsel and pris- 
oner had not foro^otten that this hearing would 
become historic, and were posturing a little for the 
eye of the retrospective observer of future years. 

I have previously stated that the court-room had 
been packed with spectators every day from the 
commencement of the trial, but this Monday morn- 
ing it seemed as if not the floor space alone, but 
all the air space, would be taken before the open- 
ing of the session, — 

" So thick the airy crowd 
Swarmed and were straightened." 

To find comfortable space for all that vast as- 
sembhige within the narrow walls of that court- 
room, the audience needed the power to condense 
themselves which Milton bestows on those fallen 
chiefs in their vast conclave in the halls of the in- 
fernal court. 

It was evident that the judicial, unimpassioned 
style in which Colonel Corkhill had opened the 
case for the government was to be given up. The 
court-room gossip was that one member of the 
jury, who had sep.n insanity in his own family, 



240 TWO HARD CASES. 

would bold to an independent opinion tlint the pris- 
oner was a Innatic, and after all tliis labor tlie jury 
would disagree. Tiie brilliant advocate was to 
leave no stone unturned, in arguniv^nt, in invective, 
in pathos, in the appeal to human passion and 
prejudice ; anything to secure the ballot of the 
twelfth man. Be sure the government had not 
counted in vain on Judge Poi'ter ; lie was there to 
win. He began calmly, but his early allusion to 
" the two Guiteaus," meaning the prisoner and ]Mr. 
Scoville ; and later, his sympathetic allusion to Mrs. 
Scoville, " however unfortunate her situation, as the 
prisoner's sister and Mr, Scoville's wife ; " and still 
later, " a tbird-rate sliyster of a criminal court, 
Mr. Scoville can tell you what that is ; I cannot," 
showed his bitterness, that the barbed dart about 
his vanity and oratory rankled. He really be- 
lieved Guiteau a kind of human rattlesnake, and 
likened him to that venomous reptile " without his 
rattle." 

After alluding to the interruptions to which they 
had been subjected so long, and the unsparing mur- 
derous hate that would still, if he felt sure of im- 
munity, send a ball to the heart of his honor, or 
any one of that jury, he reproduced the life of the 
prisoner before them, as he saw him, and with the 
hand of a master he limned this depraved being in 
all his vileness, eliminating all the insanity, pre- 



TWO HARD CASES. 241 

senting only the pure " devil seed." It is due to 
Judge Porter that a portion of this sketch should 
appear in these pages, if I am to convey to the 
reader any idea of his power : — 

" The evidence shows him to have been cunninor, 
crafty, and remorseless, utterly selfish from his 
youth up, low and brutal in his instincts, inordi- 
nate in his love of notoriety ; eaten up by a lust 
for money which has gnawed into his soul like a 
cancer ; a beggar, a hypocrite, a canter, a swindler, 
a lawyer, who, with many years of practice in two 
great cities never won a cause, and you know why ; 
a man who has left in every State tlirough which 
he passed, a trail of knavery, fraud, and imposition ; 
a man who has lived at the exjiense of others, and 
when he succeeded in getting possession of their 
funds, appropriated them to his own 23rivate use, 
in breach of every honorable obligation and every 
professional trust ; a man capable of mimicking the 
manners and aping the bearing of a gentleman ; 
who bought at pawnbrokers' shops the cast-oif 
clothing, for which he paid only when his credit 
elsewhere was exhausted ; and then, with his plausi- 
bility of religious cant, his studied skill as an actor, 
his unscrupulous self-commendation, drifting about 
from State to State, professing to be engaged in the 
work of the Lord ; a man, who, as a lawyer, col- 
lected doubtful debts by dogging the debtor, pock- 



242 TWO HARD CASES. 

eted the money as against his clients, and chuckled 
over their credulity in trusting him ; a man who 
pawned counterfeit watches as gold, to eke out a 
professional livelihood ; a man capable even of en- 
deavoring to blast the name of the woman with 
whom he had slept for years, and whom he ac- 
knowledges to have been a true and faithful wife ; 
capable of palming himself off upon the pub- 
lic, upon Christian associations, upon Christian 
churches, from city to city, as a pure and upright 
man, though he had spent years in shameless forni- 
cation ; a man who afterwards, when he wished to 
get rid of his wife, consulted the commandments of 
God, and reading, ' Thou shaltnot commit adultery,' 
went out and committed it with a prostitute. 

" He thought it needful that his wife should be 
' removed.' Fortunately for her, it did not come to 
the necessity of the form of ' removal ' which lie ap- 
plied to President Garfield. He was content with 
that which he could procure for himself by a safer 
crime, and afterwards appeared before the judicial 
referee as a witness to establish the marriage, and, 
as the record shows, produced the prostitute to 
prove the adultery. He is proved by his own 
witness to have been so void of all honor, so pos- 
sessed of the spirit of diabolism, that he was capa- 
ble at the age of eighteen of stealing up behind his 
own father, irivin<i- him a cowardly blow while 



TWO HARD CASJ^S. 243 

seated at his own table, aud relying upon the fact 
that he was then a laro;er and stronirer man than 
the father, as the latter rose, exchanged blow after 
blow with him, and when the ohl gentleman by a 
fortunate stroke drew blood on his face, the son 
at once surrendered, — a coward, then as now. 
The spirit in which at forty he fired at Garfield, 
^\•as the spirit in which at eighteen he struck his 
father from behind." 

So he followed Guiteau's life down to the assas- 
sination, and while showins^ the hn-id lio;ht of the 
hell that was in his heart he sneeringly asks about 
his devotions, " Do you think his knees would show 
the unhealed scars of his prayers ? " Thus he went 
on, chaining attention with the brilliant links of his 
impassioned oratory. I cannot begin to reproduce 
a tithe of them. He did not praise the mob, but 
he said, " There are occasions when human nature 
overrides the restraints of law, forgets and ignores 
them." He plead for the honor of that jury that no 
one man might be found to defeat the purposes of 
that trial, and repelled the idea that there was "one 
man out of twelve, the apostolic number, to be un- 
true to his trust." He returned to the prisoner, re- 
plied to his interruptions, read from his impious 
arguments, and, alluding to his claim to the Abra- 
hamic inspiration, he closed the first day of his ap- 
peal by quoting from the words of the Master his 



244 TWO HARD CASES. 

views of the Abrahamic school : " Jesus saith unto 
them, if ye were Abraham's chiklren, ye woukl do 
the works of Abraham. . . . Ye are of your father, 
the devil, and tlie lusts of your father ye will do. 
He was a murderer from the beoinninor and abode 
not in ti-ut_h, because there is no truth in him." 
And he had painted this devil so black that his 
audience saw the family resemblance in the pict- 
ure. 

The second day he alluded to the alleged sup- 
pressed evidence, which, " forsooth, the two Gui- 
teaus demanded, as a matter of right, in their 
behalf." Here, undertaking to state from his own 
knowledge that the insj)iration was not to be found 
in the stenographer's report of the interview with 
Guiteau, he was properly stopped by the court, on 
the objection of the counsel for the defense. 

Soon, turning from this, he went on in a strain 
of sustained ii-ony to ask. Who killed President 
Garfield ? The prisoner unwittingly assisted him 
to his first answer by interjecting, •' The doctors," 
which was exactly what he wanted. All through 
his argument he was disposed to re|)ly to the in- 
terruptions of the prisoner ; this was in doubtful 
taste, but as it was the giant crushing the pigmy, it 
was often very effective. But who killed Garfield ? 
He went thi-ough the list, — the doctors, Secretary 
IMaine, John II. Noyes, the public press, etc., — 



TIVO HARD CASES. 245 

turning aside in an episode to make an eloquent 
appeal to the passions of the jury, in such vigorous 
language as this : " The right of trial by jury 
existed long before the charters granted by English 
kings. It originated when men felt as you and I 
feel to-d:iy, that a jury should be called, and a jury 
of the vicinage, and that they should bring with 
them their knowledge of men, and their abhorrence 
of crime, and that they should not leave their moral 
nature and their consciences outside when they 
enter the jury-box." 

He eulogizes Conkling and Grant and Arthur, 
arraigned hj the counsel for the defense, as re- 
sponsible for the murder of the President, returns 
to the personal appeal to the jury, combats Mr. 
Reed's idea of their independent position as kings 
and emperors. "Jurors have, and should have, 
human sympathies. They huve the sense of con- 
science, of duty, and of just indignation at wrong.'* 
"•I venture to affirm that the prisoner is mistaken, 
and that there is not an unworthy juror in that 
box ; that there is no man-made king, no man-made 
emperor ; that you are God-made men." 

The close of the second day found him reviewing 
the testimony for the defense, with which he also 
opened the third and last day. His dissections 
were able and unsparing. A single sentence, 
sweeping down three witnesses with that jury at 



246 TWO HARD CASES. 

one blow, will sufficientlj illustrate. vSpeaking of 
Damon, who testified that Guiteau was insane when 
he spoke in 1871), in Paine Memorial Hall, in 
Boston, he says, " Then we have the ex-Unitarian 
minister, who had retired, perhaps for conscience' 
sake, into a gathering of those who, like Dr. 
Spitzka, did not care to acknowledge the Creator 
that made them, or who, like Dr. Kiernan, did not 
believe in a future state of existence." 

As the morning went on, he either found by the 
faces of the jury that they were a unit, or, fearing 
to let them down by too long a discussion of the 
testimony, he turned to ridicule the discovery made 
by Reed of the insanity of Charlotte Corday, pro- 
nouncing an impassioned eulogy on that rose of 
blood, the solitary flower which blossomed and faded 
in that night of terror. As he grandly says, '^ She 
was one of the noblesse created by the God, whose 
name this prisoner blasphemes." And Wilkes 
Booth, even, was brave and half a patriot beside 
tliis craven, " cold-blooded murderer." " He died 
like a noble stag at bay." " There were, in his 
case, circumstances which tend to mitigate in some 
degree the horror we feel for the act of the as- 
sassin." 

Then, with the statement that money has been 
this man's God from the beginning, " money and 
an inordinate craving for notoriety," and claiming 



TWO HARD CASES. 247 

the latter as his motive for the crime, he closes the 
morning hour. After the recess, at which time he 
evidently decided to bring his appeal to a close, in 
season for the judge's charge l)el"ore a nigiit's sleep 
could dissipate the effects of his powerful presenta- 
tion of the criminal and his crime, he confines him- 
self to the prisoner's wretched pretense of transi- 
tory mania, his claim to inspiration, and his care- 
fully written defense that omitted it all the while. 
To heighten the effect to the jur}^ the prisoner 
was shouting his interruptions, only to have them 
^ turned back by Judge Porter, ever ready, ever 
alert, in glowing eloquence, standing there in the 
pride of his triumph hour ; and, leaving the " name 
of James A. Garfield in characters of light upon 
the firmament, there to remain as radiant and en- 
durincj as if every letter were traced in livinji 
stars," he stepped from that arena to the pedestal 
of his future fame. • The jury decided to remain, 
and tiie judge commenced his charge. 

Judi;e Cox was to be relied on to state to the 
jury precisely what he believed to be the law. For 
three mouths his position had hardly been an envi- 
able one. This man, small in stature, of quiet, re- 
tiring habits and scholarly tastes, but indexible of 
purpose, firm in the consciousness that lie was right, 
had stood, like a rock, unmoved by the popular 
clamor, by the bowlings that from press and pulpit 



248 TWO HARD CASES. 

pandered to the passions of the hour, hardly dis- 
turbed by the noisy interruptions of the prisoner 
even, determined tliat this pariah of criminals should 
have, so far as it was in his power to secure it for 
him, the impartial trial which that section of the 
Constitution of the United States with which his 
honor opened his charge guarantees to every per- 
son accused of crime. 

Those who know Judge Cox did not need to be 
informed that he would not require to have the 
eminent judge of a New York court, or of any 
other bench, instruct him as to. the law^ of insanity, 
or to indicate in advance what his charge to the 
jury in this case should be. They knew that he 
would charge the law pertinent to the facts brought 
out in evidence, and that he would keep strictly 
within the established canons of foi-mer decisions. 
But justice to all demanded that he should not 
lay down any law beyond the facts brought out 
in the trial, and those who complain that he 
charged strongly against the prisoner should blame 
the evidence, and not the judge. That his honor 
had decided in his own mind on the sanity of the 
prisoner can scarcely be doubted ; this was hardly 
to be avoided, however desirable, in the direction 
of keeping the mind unbiased, it might be, that 
this question should still remain in abeyance ; nor 
does it anywhere a2:)pear that the law requires that 



TWO HARD CASES. 249 

the judge sliould not liavc formed an opinion, only 
tliat lie shall chari^e the jury according to the law 
as related to the evidence before them. Those lif- 
teen medical witnesses for the government who, al- 
most unchallenged by the medical testimony for the 
defense, maintained the perfect sanity of Guiteau 
could hardly be supposed to carry much weight as 
experts if they did not convince the court, whose 
advisers the law presup|)Oses them to be, of the 
truth of the facts to which they testified. 

In relation to the safeguards of the law he said 
Avell of the prisoner: ''If he be guilty, no man de- 
serves their protection less than he does. If he be 
innocent, no man needs their protection more, and 
no man's case more clearly proves their beneficence 
and justice." His honor then went on to instruct 
on various legal points, not necessarily involving 
the point of insanity. Passing these, we come to 
the legal '* partial insanity," in regard to which he 
gives this instruction : " AVhenever this partial in- 
sanity is relied on as a defense, it must appear that 
the crime charged was the product of the delusion 
or other morbitl condition, and connected with it as 
effect with cause, and not the result of some reason- 
ing or natural motives, which the party may be 
capable of, notwithstanding his circumscribed dis- 
order." 

This would be dangerous ground in psychology, 



250 TWO HARD CASES. 

but I believe it has always been insisted on in 
law. The physician, finding the reason wrong in 
one direction, deems it niireliable, at least, in all ; 
his belief in the unity of mind would seem to ren- 
der such conclusion necessary. I am not sure, how- 
ever, but the " or other morbid condition " in his 
honor's dictum would prove a saving clause, allow- 
ing the connection of any crime charged, with the 
insanity, independent of the delusion. As a matter 
of fact, among the insane it is often impossible to 
establish any sort of relation between the delusion 
and the insane act ; as, for example, in my own 
wards, when the recently self-appointed minister 
to St. James' was found to have destroyed his 
clothinof. 

His honor's remarks on the propriety of ex- 
tended testimony on the question of the man's san- 
ity especially commend themselves to the judgment 
of the medical expert. The test of criminal re- 
sponsibility, where the defense of insanity is in- 
terposed, he gives as follows : " Whether the ac- 
cused had sufficient use of his reason to understand 
the nature of the act with which he is charged, 
and to understand that it was wrong for him to 
commit ; that if this was the fact he is criminally 
responsible for it, whatever peculiarities may be 
shown about him in other respects ; whereas, if his 
reason was so defective, in consequence of mental 



TWO HARD CASES. 251 

disorder, generally supposed to be caused by brain 
disease, that he could not understand what he was 
dohiof, or that what he was doing was wrong, he 
ought to be treated as an irresponsible person." 

This is the " iron rule of the court," as Mr. 
Davidge styled it. I know it is accepted law, but 
there is irresponsible medical insanity lying outside 
that limit. 

Tiie terrible cases of irresistible impulse to in- 
fanticide against the struggling reason of the 
mother, in puerperal insanity, that are now and 
then seen by physicians, are so obviously insane 
acts that they never reach the courts, and so the 
judges are not compelled by their humanity to re- 
vise this dictum. The insane man often does what 
he knows is wrong, in spite of himself, and he does 
it by reason of insanity. An eminent judge once 
told me that when suffering from a temporary at- 
tack of " melancholia that he took a step, not 
criminal, which he knew at the time he should 
ever after regret, for it was iri-evocable ; this he 
knew, but could not help doing the act. The next 
day he would have given almost anything to re- 
call it if he could. To that judge, on the question 
of irresistible impulse, this one item of personal 
experience was worth a hundred learned prece- 
dents. 

But it is not for me to pronounce what should 



252 TWO HARD CASES. 

be the insanity of law. It were fitter that I should 
criticise the medical experts, whose opinions liave 
rendered such judicial utterances possible. It is 
enoutrh for me to say of the charge that it was a 
painstaking, conscientious statement of the estab- 
lished dicta of law, as applicable to the facts in evi- 
dence in this case, facts which had been carefully 
studied by the learned judge, in the light which 
the distinguished experts for the government were 
able to throw upon them ; and though I am unable 
to see that the charge is any adTance on former 
rulings as viewed from the physician's stand-point, 
it is an able digest of those rulings, and will, I 
think, be accepted by jurists as among the sound- 
est expositions of the, relation of insanity to crim- 
inal law. The final summary, with its direct pres- 
entation of this case, which is brief but admirable, 
is enough for our purpose here : — 

" If you find from the whole evidence that, at 
the time of the commission of the homicide, the 
prisoner, in consequence of disease of mind, was 
laboring under such a defect of his reason that he 
was incapable of understanding what he was doing, 
or that it was wrong, as, for example, if he was un- 
der an insane delusion that the Almighty had com- 
manded him to do the act, and in consequence of 
that he was incapable of seeing that it was a wrong 
thing to do, then he was not in a responsible con- 



TWO HARD CASES. 253 

dition of mind, and was an object of compassion, 
and not of justice, and ought to be now acquitted. 

'• On the other hand, if you find that he was un- 
der no insane delusions, such as I have described, 
but had possession of his faculties and the power 
to know that his act was wrong, and of his own 
free will deliberately conceived, planned, and exe- 
cuted this homicide, then, whether his motive was 
personal vindictiveness, or political animosity, or a 
desire to avenge a supposed political wrong, or a 
morbid desire for notoriety, or fanciful ideas of 
patriotism or the Divine will, or you are unable to 
discover any motive at all, the act is simply mur- 
der, and it is youi- duty to find him guilty." 

So at half past four o'clock that AYednesday 
afternoon, of the 25tli of January, the judge gave 
the case to the jury, who at once retired. 

In that brief winter day the darkness was al- 
ready gathering in the court-room ; everybody 
waited, feeling that the end had come. After a 
little the prisoner requested permission to retire to 
the marshal's room, and a recess of half an hour 
was taken. With the close of the recess it was 
whispered through the room that a verdict had 
■ been reached. Candles had been brought in, cast- 
inir evervthiuir into fiickerinix lisfht and shadow; 
the dim forms of the jury were seen coming in, 
and a hush as of death went over that crowded 
room. 



254 TWO HARD CASES. 

The foreman stood, and to tlie question of the 
clerk, " Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed 
upon a verdict ? " he answered, — 

" We have." 

" What say you ? Is tlie defendant guilty or 
not guilty ? " 

And on that yet deeper husli the answer came : — 

" Guilty as indicted, sir." 

And the agony of suspense was over, and from 
the audience came a burst of applause. The bail- 
iffs shouted " Silence ! " Mr. Scoville was on his 
feet calling on the court, and Mr. Davidge insist- 
ing that the verdict be first recorded. This done, 
Mr. Scoville demanded that the jury be polled. 
As one by one their names were called, and out of 
the darkness, " Guilty,'' " Guilty," came from each 
one, one man of all that assembly, apparently un- 
moved, sitting erect, sent back to the last response, 
in the old familiar voice, the reply, '• My blood be 
on the head of that jury; don't you forget it. That 
is my answer." A question or two from the coun- 
sel, replied to by the court, a word of thanks from 
the judge to the jury. " Bis show " yet, but pass- 
ing, the audience rising, it was time to ring the 
curtain down, and out of the darkness of the room 
and of that convict's soul came tiie cry, '• God will 
avenije this outrange!" This was his last " ^ood- 
night." 



TWO HARD CASES. 255 

Of course there were the exceptions taken, and 
argued and overruled, — the verdict was tlie end. 

On the 4th of February the district attorney 
moved that the sentence be pronounced. In an- 
swer to the question if he had anything to say wliy 
sentence should not be pronounced upon him, he 
made the following response, most of which had 
already done duty in the " Christmas Greeting," 
in his argument to the jury, and I know not on 
what other occasions : " I am not guilty, sir, of the 
charge set forth in the indictment. It was God's 
act, and not mine, and God will take care of it, 
and don't the American people forget it ; and 
every officer, judicial or otherwise, from the Pres- 
ident down to that marshal, taking in every man 
on that jury and every member of this bench, will 
l)ay fur it ; and the American nation will roll in 
blood, if my body goes into that ground and I am 
hung. I tell you, the mills of the gods grind slow, 
but they grind sure. Those Jews put the despised 
Galilean into the grave, and they had their way for 
a little time ; but at the destruction of Jerusalem, 
forty years after, the Almighty got even with them. 
I tell you I am here as God's man. I have no 
fear of death ; kill me to-morrow, if you want to. 
I am here as God's man, and have been fi-oin the 
start. I care not what men shall do with me." 
And then solemnly, with fitting exordium, the judge 



256 Tiro HARD CASES. 

pronounced the sentence, closing with the usual 
impressive words, "And may God have mercy upon 
your soul." On the liush of tliat conrt-room came 
back, like a weird hut solemn echo, " And may 
God have mercy upon you?- soul." 

Some days later I saw him for a few moments 
in jail, having been called there to visit another 
prisoner. He was already showing a relief from 
the tension of the trial, was markedly gaining in 
flesh, was happy in the sale of photographs, and 
autographs, w^s making money at last, was calm 
and apparently content. 1 am satisfied he still 
looks for an earthly redemption. To such a mind 
tliere is always something aliead ; hope never dies. 
They will talk of his '•' weakening," and he is by 
nature cowardly and shrinks from pain, but this 
time they will find he has enlisted for the war. 

Mr. Reed, with eloquent appeal, has carried his 
case to the court in banc ; the exceptions were 
overruled, and there is nothing left between him 
and the end, — nothing but "an act of God." 

And so on the oOtli of June, 1882, from the land 
which he lias widowed and that has grown impa- 
tient of his lingering presence; from the court he 
has insulted and defied, — that liuman justice on 
which we pronounce the highest encomium wlien 
we call it blind, — to the Divine compassion, who 
is " touched with the feeling of our infirmities" 
unabashed, he will venture the last appeal. 



TWO HARD CASES. 257 

And now, with the last proof-sheet of these out- 
lines, strangely delayed, lying before me, comes the 
tidings of the end. This was in keeping with all 
the rest. With a firm step and an upturned eye 
he went away ; and while the notes of a weird 
chant lingered in the air, with a paraphrase of the 
prayer of prayers on his lips, and the exultant yell 
of the mob rising without, he took the appeal " be- 
yond these voices." Perhaps not in vain, for that 
mind which saw through a veil comprehended not ; 
even as that brain acted through thickened, clouded 
membranes. 

17 



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